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You make reference that Roland hasn't played in Stomptown, while that maybe correct I believe that you haven't played in the 12 man queue prior to PGI lumping the 12 man crew in with the rest of the groups.
Well, I know I see you on an infrequent basis in the solo queue, so I know our elos cross paths from time to time.
So there that for what it's worth.
Actually, I joined a group to participate in 12mans because I thought it'd be far different than it was. I used to be a battle caller too. Unfortunately, I realized a few things that I just couldn't stomach in this level of play.
1. A level of obsession/devotion to the game that turned it into a full time job just like any athlete.
2. My computer hardware was not powerful enough to compete, forcing me to play the LRM game which is junk in 12man play.
3. The absolute need to drive drop decks optimized out to the nth degree and the practice time to make it effective.
For those reasons, I quit doing 12mans and it's why I don't enjoy Stomptown much right now because before, when you had to have equal 12man groups facing off, you didn't see them in queue. Now you can get partial or whole company drops like that who then are proving to just slaughter everyone in front of them. I seem to recall reading on Reddit that the House of Lords when the 5+ groups were allowed had a victory run of 100-0 before they said... nope no more. I know I've had it done to me by many units out there when I was just playing filler for a 10 man casual group and next thing you know, you're facing HHOD's tournament team and getting your brains kicked in because you got stuck with a 10man of Beerwarriors.
This is not fun.
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There would be some nights you would play maybe 1 match or 2 in a 2 1/2 hour span. That's pathetic, and I would absolutely hate for it to go back there.
I agree. That was pathetic when there was only 2-4 12man teams on at any one time forcing you to square off against the same guys again and again regardless of mismatch because there was no one else. Which is also a bad sign of the state of the game. Of course going out and forcing small groups of friends to take on these monsters by rolling them into the 12man queue which is essentially what PGI did was an even BIGGER mistake.
Now the 12mans get practice against wooden pells and everyone else gets the MWO version of a swirlie.
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They did that because they realized that they couldn't fragment the queue any further. What you're suggesting is Pug, Casual groups, and Comp groups. I don't know if thats really going to work.
You may be right, but what they're doing now is incentivizing a worse state of the game. Friends can't team up and enjoy themselves in a casual environment, or at least less hard core play, and competitive teams cannot find opponents because the game population is too small to support them. This is a dire state.
That is why I suggested the three queue solution of:
Solo queue: player that drop solo into PUG groups.
Lance Queue: Groups of 2-4 with the option for solo players to join in.
Company Queue: Groups of 5+ with the option for 4man lances to opt in. Groups of 8+ can drop opt to short against equal sized opponents.
This is parsing finer, but it allows for an 'opt in' option, just like you have for the game modes. So if solo players don't care if they end up against 2-4 man groups, fine. They can join in. But if they're so scared of that, they can go to the solo queue only and worry only about the evil premade sync drop
By allowing a lance of 4 players to opt into the company queue, it increases the ability of the company queue to satisfy the needs of 12man groups with those who feel prepared enough to take on that level of play. You also get to allow groups of 11 to happen, 8 man drops can occur with the opt in function and generally, this will help ensure people who want to play at this level have the option and a bucket big enough to make it worth while.
See, I didn't make this choice without knowing what it's like to be in all levels of this game. PUGging and12man play both made me want to quit. Now that's all I have left. Dirty pool, PGI.
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So a group drops into the Comp queue gets rofl stomped 5 times in a row, the first thing they are going to do is go into the casual group. While they are not better than the comp groups that are in there now, they are better than anyone in the casual groups. There they would proceed with the stomping.
And that is why you have a return of the Lance Queue with opt in for solo players. There is no place for the casual competitive since Elo is not a hard barrier... anywhere. It happens in the Soloqueue, just not as severe or frequently and why it has the nickname Derptown.
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IF you did decide to go down this path you must make an incentive to do the Comp drop. Either way one of the two queues are going to die off . Leaving you in the same position as before the change was made.
See, I don't see the same outcome you do. Then again, my solution is not quite the same as what you were envisioning I was wanting.