42 replies to this topic

[gbalanced]

I'm a long time player of Mechwarrior games and love what they've done with MWO thus far. I have a request that I'm sure I'm going to get flamed for or be told to just "git gud nub." I used to enjoy playing with one of my good friends, but now it's all but unplayable. When the change went in effect to force 2-man groups to be in the group queue, we regularly go into much more coordinated groups of 8 or more. The casual nature of playing is now gone unless you play solo and this saddens me greatly. I understand the need of placing premade groups against other premades, but I ask you if one 2 man group is enough to really give one team an unfair advantage. I propose that you leave 2, and even 3-man groups, to the solo queue because there's a lot of us who don't play competitively, buy consumables every game, stick to what's strong in the meta, or shoot/coordinate with large groups on an excellent level that requires dedication to just this specific game. There's too often a landslide in one direction on the group queue and that gets to be demoralizing pretty quick. Games are meant to be fun, otherwise your shouldn't play them. This change has greatly taken out the joy and laughter and turned the game into a serious affair for those of us that don't have an extensive amount of time to commit to this game.

[Deathlike]

It won't work... in the sense that people are sensitive to wanting the solo queue STAYING solo as 2 or 3 man groups alter the dynamics of the queue (especially if they are good players).

They need to make a better overall New Player Experience that allows people introduced to the game by friends to practice for free against AI or really small groups w/o forcing them to commit to paying immediately.

That's part of the problem.

[Roadkill]

No. This is a terrible idea that crops up regularly. The solo queue is for solo players. Period.

You and your two newbie buddies might not be out of place together in the solo queue, but what about 3 Lords? Think that's going to work out the way you want?

Sorry, but no.

[Ahri-the-Fox]

well, he is not asking your permission Roadkill, he has a legit suggestion/request to make. and for the sake of balance...

look at World of Tanks, when you have 2 groups of 2 players on one side, it puts 2 groups of 2 players on the other side, or 1 group of 3 or even 4 players, to counter that.

it works for Wot, and that's also an successful game.
So why shouldn't it work here?

srsly.

the casual gaming aspect of this game, to have 3 or 4 matches after a workday with your pal and have a good laugh while being at it (and a somewhat balanced fight on top) is what i'm (and i guess it's not only me) miss.
now we're forced to play with drops of 8 10 or 12'ish clandrops, that just roflstomp on the team that has 2 groups of 3 players, 1 group of 2 and 1 group of 4 players and badaboom.

the splintered side of the match could just as well power down and try to get a new match, where there are no groups of 8 or more'ish clandrops

[Darwins Dog]

I would love to see a system where a veteran player could team up with a newbie and be a sort of coach. Balancing could be tricky, but it would help the new player experience immensely. I feel your pain. I'm not new, but I'm not very good. When I group up with members of my unit who are good I suddenly find myself facing much better competition.

At the same time, PGI can't just shift the 2 person groups to the solo queue.

I think the main problem is in the way the matchmaker makes a group. Right now it takes groups of 2-10 or 12. With the 2-10 groups it has to mix and match until it can make a team of 12. The 2s are needed to bring a group of 10 (or 2x5, or 4+6, etc) up to a full team. If they took 2-man groups out of the group queue then they would have to restrict groups to 3-9 or 12. It may not seem like much, but not having the 2s there to work with would mean a lot more time for the match maker to make up a full team.

It also has a chance of unbalancing the solo queue, as mentioned above. I don't really think that would be as much of a problem, since two really good players would still be facing other players of comparable skill. It's more that many of the solo players are REALLY opposed to having groups in their queue.

[Elkarlo]

We need fresh players.

MWO is a hard game to learn and having someone beside one would be nice.
Atm Group-queue is a total Mess for small Teams

Roadkill you like the Urban Mech?
I think you will have to buy the Flea soon and the Mackie.
Because PGI needs Money urgently.

One way is to milk old players with Crap mech.
The other is to make live for New players easy.
And that would two man Teams into Solo Games.

Edit.:
@ Darwins Dog
Nice thingin at this. one Problem is that you can forget to play 2 Man Groups atm.
Allowing 2 man Groups in BOTH Queue's would improve Solo and Group play.
As it would make lot more sense to have 2 man Groups. So there would be lot more
2 man Groups overall. So maybe more players overall too.
I invested a lot into MWO and i see it dying. Thanks to the same Reason
Eve-Online, Navyfield and other Games went into big Trouble.
We need fresh players and an open Struktur for them to have simply fun
with their Friends in Casual Games. Thanks to the big Clan Groups with their
7-12 Player drops.You can simply forget to have Drops with 2-3 players.
Allowing 2 man Drops into both Queue's would easy the Problem a lot.
The other way would be to reduce Drop Size of the Clan Players. They have their
big Serious Community Warfare field,
Why steal the Casual Players their Pugging Field with Large Company Size Drops?

And MWO Needs Casual Players which plays only 2-4 Hours the Week in small Groups.
As they bring the most Money per Server Time. (They play so few because they have Jobs
and this means Money they spend instead of leveling)

Edited by Elkarlo, 01 April 2015 - 12:05 PM.

[Roadkill]

Jheakryna, on 01 April 2015 - 11:39 AM, said:

well, he is not asking your permission Roadkill, he has a legit suggestion/request to make.

It's a bad suggestion. I don't care if he's asking my permission, I'm going to argue against his bad suggestion whether he (or you) likes it or not.

Quote

it works for Wot, and that's also an successful game.
So why shouldn't it work here?

WoT has 800,000 users. MWO does not. That's why it works for WoT and doesn't for MWO.

Remember, what he's asking for is exactly what we had before. 12-man groups were in one queue. 4-man and smaller were in another. And people whined (rightly) that the 4-man groups were ruining the non-comp queue.

It didn't work then, so what makes you think it would work now?

[Xetelian]

I stand by the since LoL does it we could do it. Its 2 out of 24 players that know each other coms for all.

[gbalanced]

I'm all for people arguing with my suggestion, Roadkill. In fact, I invite debate. I do ask that, if you think it's a bad idea, you offer up your own instead of simply shooting things down. You said it didn't work before, but didn't you just say it was for groups of 4 or more? I really want to play this game and the super competitive group queue kills the joy for me and my friends. We all know the player base is really small for this game and that's probably the large part of the problem, but that means we need to do something to fix it.

If you scare off the majority of new players because of the incredible difficulty spike from playing with a friend, then you're doing something wrong.

[Deathlike]

gbalanced, on 01 April 2015 - 10:59 PM, said:

If you scare off the majority of new players because of the incredible difficulty spike from playing with a friend, then you're doing something wrong.

Unfortunately, welcome to MWO.

[Widowmaker1981]

This is a problem, but the solution (allowing 2-3 men teams into the solo queue) would be worse than the current problem for two reasons:

1) 2-3 man teams of good players will WRECK the solo queue if unopposed by a good enemy group. trust me, they will.

2) 2-3 man teams are required by the group queue to complete the drops of 9 and 10 man teams, so if you did this you'd have to cap groups at 8 which would cause a giant ruckus.

When i play smaller drops with my unit (3-4 man) we can often get saddled with 2 4 man derp teams and carry them hard. sure our win rate is lower than with an 8 man or something, but its still way in excess of 50%. So this is an issue of skill really as its very possible for small groups to be successful (i actually prefer dropping in smaller groups because it gives more opportunity for carry hard epeen extensions). The only solution i can see, unfortunately, is to 'git gud' as you put it.

I could possibly see allowing people with less than say 500 total drops to play 2-3 mans in the solo queue as not causing balance issues, but if you do that its very hard to get round the issue of people creating alt accounts to go farm the newbies..

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 02 April 2015 - 01:46 AM.

[tucsonspeed6]

I'd be supportive of allowing 2-man groups in solo queue as a sort of mentoring program. Limit it to 1 group per team though. I have a friend that I would like to introduce to the game, but can't because group queue and CW aren't the types of places where you can teach a friend how to play. 3-men groups should still be banned, though, because as the old saying goes, "2s company, 3s a pug stomp. "

[Elkarlo]

@ Widowmaker

You see the Problem in a very Narrow Path.

1) Putt 2 Man Teams in opposing teams in the Solo Queue would solve the
Balancing Problem of having 2 man Teams in the Solo queue.

2) You need for your big Company Drops 2-3 Man Team to make the Group full.
Making it extremly hard for 2 Man Teams to have decent Games will putt the Players into the
Solo Queue. So very few 2-3 Man Teams around.

When you allow 2 Man Teams in BOTH Queues... the Majority of Teams will be 2 man Teams,
as the Players will have faster Game Starts. And it will be more Fun to play with a Friend.
That will improve Game experience and highen the Pool for Clans for new Players etc.

WoT Made it exactly this way. Allow only a restricted Number of Tank Teams into a Game putt
the Equal Number against each other.

Allowing max 2 2 Man Teams on each side of the Solo queue would improve MWO Gaming expirence for small
Group Players ( The Players which bring new Money) and having more Half Lances around over all.
So the Numbers of Half Lance Players for the Groups will even increase.

So with an open Mind everybody would win, especially MWO and PGI (more money from new players).
I saw a lot of games die thanks to the: ELITE PLAYERS DEMAND THEIR PLAYSTYLE WE WIN EVERYTHING AND PAY A LOT.

And exactly that is what is propageded with the :
"Our Large Groups with 10 PLayers need the Half Lances for matches, don't steal them."


Greetings
Elkarlo

Ps.:
Some personal observation:

Half Lance Playing Sucks realy for the Better Players, as it is always: One Side 1-2 Clan 12 Players other Side: 2 3man Drops one 2 man Drop and the 2 man Drop. Then you got stomped. For the higher Player you got about 60% of this Grouping when you play a 2 man Team. And you loose about 80% of it. When you play 2 or 3 man Drops be prepared to loose in stupid Teams, you will always the Elo Point fillup, when you have ton's of point, because you fight even when the game is lost, you will always have Idiots because the opposing homogenous team do teamwork and so they got only mediocore Ratings overall.
Thats the Elo System for good players in small Teams and it sucks and drive them off.

I played for a long time 4 man Drops and this is fun. But now personal Situation has changed the Ts has dried out etc.. i am on 2/3 man Drops and it simply Sucks. I am a Hardcore player and stay in the Game. But for newbie's it is simply unbearable.
And you can't have good training with a Mentor in a 4 man Team.

[Jon Gotham]

gbalanced, on 01 April 2015 - 10:59 PM, said:

I'm all for people arguing with my suggestion, Roadkill. In fact, I invite debate. I do ask that, if you think it's a bad idea, you offer up your own instead of simply shooting things down. You said it didn't work before, but didn't you just say it was for groups of 4 or more? I really want to play this game and the super competitive group queue kills the joy for me and my friends. We all know the player base is really small for this game and that's probably the large part of the problem, but that means we need to do something to fix it.

If you scare off the majority of new players because of the incredible difficulty spike from playing with a friend, then you're doing something wrong.

It didn't work before, because of the nature of the people that didn't like it. What is defined as casual in MWO is about as UBER casual as it gets.
Like others have said I've played other games where small groups have been in pug queues with next to 0 whining-I don't really feel it's all down to population. MWO is a unique beast,I've never known a pug/soloplayerbase to be so sensitive to facing more co ordinated opposition. It does not seem to be an issue in WT or WoT so I wonder why it's such an issue here?
( I mean, that is a SERIOUS question)
Though I must say, I'm not finding the same as you in the group queue. Lately it plays exactly the same as solo queue does. 0 communication outside of your group, random solos running around doing random things and extreme levels of derp with very frequent stomps. If I drop with say 1 or 2 guys only, it plays almost IDENTICAL to solo queue. the only difference is you MIGHT get an extra set of guns shooting at you when you pull something, maybe.

If I want different play, I have to go to CW.

[Widowmaker1981]

Elkarlo, on 02 April 2015 - 06:12 AM, said:

@ Widowmaker

You see the Problem in a very Narrow Path.

1) Putt 2 Man Teams in opposing teams in the Solo Queue would solve the
Balancing Problem of having 2 man Teams in the Solo queue.

2) You need for your big Company Drops 2-3 Man Team to make the Group full.
Making it extremly hard for 2 Man Teams to have decent Games will putt the Players into the
Solo Queue. So very few 2-3 Man Teams around.

When you allow 2 Man Teams in BOTH Queues... the Majority of Teams will be 2 man Teams,
as the Players will have faster Game Starts. And it will be more Fun to play with a Friend.
That will improve Game experience and highen the Pool for Clans for new Players etc.

WoT Made it exactly this way. Allow only a restricted Number of Tank Teams into a Game putt
the Equal Number against each other.

Allowing max 2 2 Man Teams on each side of the Solo queue would improve MWO Gaming expirence for small
Group Players ( The Players which bring new Money) and having more Half Lances around over all.
So the Numbers of Half Lance Players for the Groups will even increase.

So with an open Mind everybody would win, especially MWO and PGI (more money from new players).
I saw a lot of games die thanks to the: ELITE PLAYERS DEMAND THEIR PLAYSTYLE WE WIN EVERYTHING AND PAY A LOT.

And exactly that is what is propageded with the :
"Our Large Groups with 10 PLayers need the Half Lances for matches, don't steal them."


Greetings
Elkarlo

Ps.:
Some personal observation:

Half Lance Playing Sucks realy for the Better Players, as it is always: One Side 1-2 Clan 12 Players other Side: 2 3man Drops one 2 man Drop and the 2 man Drop. Then you got stomped. For the higher Player you got about 60% of this Grouping when you play a 2 man Team. And you loose about 80% of it. When you play 2 or 3 man Drops be prepared to loose in stupid Teams, you will always the Elo Point fillup, when you have ton's of point, because you fight even when the game is lost, you will always have Idiots because the opposing homogenous team do teamwork and so they got only mediocore Ratings overall.
Thats the Elo System for good players in small Teams and it sucks and drive them off.

I played for a long time 4 man Drops and this is fun. But now personal Situation has changed the Ts has dried out etc.. i am on 2/3 man Drops and it simply Sucks. I am a Hardcore player and stay in the Game. But for newbie's it is simply unbearable.
And you can't have good training with a Mentor in a 4 man Team.

How do you mean in both queues? Either you mean 2 man groups can select the solo queue or group queue, in which case i guarantee you they will pick solo queue 99.99999% of the time, meaning there will be no possibility for 10 man groups to find a game, or you mean the MM will randomly decide based on what it needs, which is better but will lead to complaints from people wanting to play casual in the solo queue and getting dumped in with groups anyway.

And it really doesnt suck that much for 3 good players in the group queue as a 3 man. its not ideal, but still ok. 1 good player with 2 newbs is not so nice though.

Bottom line is new players need to learn in the solo queue i think.

[TB Freelancer]

Widowmaker1981, on 02 April 2015 - 01:46 AM, said:

This is a problem, but the solution (allowing 2-3 men teams into the solo queue) would be worse than the current problem for two reasons:

1) 2-3 man teams of good players will WRECK the solo queue if unopposed by a good enemy group. trust me, they will.

There's that.

Guys like the OP just have no clue what they're asking for. If anyone is having trouble in the group queue in a 2/3 man, they'd be in for a rude awakening if 2/3 mans were allowed in the pug queue. They'd likely find it even tougher.

The simple fact of the matter is if you're just not that strong a player, it doesn't matter what queue you're in. The only way out of that hole is to improve.

Personally I find being in a small group (when playing casually) in the group queue is where I consistently pull down the most wins. Often by a large margin.

Looking at last night, I started out in a 6 man and every 2 or 3 matches we'd lose a guy until we were down to 2. There were a few losses early on, but the last 11 matches of the night were all wins. That many wins in a row almost never happens in the pug queue, team quality is just way to unpredictable.

Edited by TB Freelancer, 02 April 2015 - 06:26 AM.

[Elkarlo]

@ Widowmaker

No player Choice but per Chance.
When two 2 man Teams are waiting with a similar Elo Putt them into a Solo queue on Each Side of the Game.
When there is a need of a 2 man Team in Group Queue, draft one.

@ TB Freelancer

Putt 2 2 Man Teams with similar Elo on each Side of the Game won't change the balancing.

And you were realy lucky. I have normaly on a loose a Gamescore over 50 (mostly over 70) and i end
nearly always on the looser team...

[DivineEvil]

I don't think it's a problem. For me the entire Public Queue is casual. If you can't even face the challenge, you'd never get better.

[Ahri-the-Fox]

Roadkill, on 01 April 2015 - 08:27 PM, said:

WoT has 800,000 users. MWO does not. That's why it works for WoT and doesn't for MWO.

Remember, what he's asking for is exactly what we had before. 12-man groups were in one queue. 4-man and smaller were in another. And people whined (rightly) that the 4-man groups were ruining the non-comp queue.

It didn't work then, so what makes you think it would work now?

so what is the problem with having 2 and 3 man teams drop in solo queue? i don't get what you are trying to say - if you are trying to say anything after all and it's not about 'i'm right and i don't know what i'm talking about'.

srsly, enlighten me

[Furious Zen Master]

- Only one 2-man group per team allowed.

- One of the players of the 2-man group must have less than 150 matches under his belt.

This would be adequate "initiation" for new players, anything more is just looking for a way to farm solos.