61 replies to this topic

[Zoid]

gloowa, on 23 April 2016 - 03:13 AM, said:

This completely baffles me.

Week ago, every single match was 8+ unitless pugs. Now Russ says they apparently stopped dropping.

Leave it to pugs to whine for a year to get a feature in because "game is unplayable without it", and then when it's there, refuse to use it.

Seriously, if i was Russ, next Town Hall would start with heavy language adressed at certain groups of people.

The pugs "aren't there" anymore because they made units so they could be mercs. The solution is to let merc be a path you can take solo, not necessarily to merge the queues. The penalty for abandoning the solo loyalist path is pretty harsh so it's not surprising that a lot of solo players made 1-person units and are thus in the unit queue.

[Ghogiel]

Most players in CW play solo, in both unit and solo queue, are queuing solo. A lot of those players are even from units with more than 12 people in them. I think that answers the question.

Edited by Ghogiel, 23 April 2016 - 10:20 AM.

[MischiefSC]

DarklightCA, on 23 April 2016 - 02:47 AM, said:

You can see what on the leaderboard? That 6 units have planets and a bunch of other units that I have NEVER seen in any form of a group in any game happens to have their unit tag on it? That's suppose to mean that ALL those units have 10 people that can represent their unit on a regular basis to make this idea work? Don't make me laugh.

Regardless if somebody created a one man unit to solo queue in the unit queue or somebody belongs to a inactive unit that barely plays, they are all still solo players if you aren't group dropping and in regards to the OP's suggestion that means for every two of those players you need a active unit that can form a 10 man group.

Being that majority of the players that units still get matched up against are tagged solo players, I'd state that there aren't enough 10 man's in this game to hold up all the solo players in a queue system like that.

I think I missed expressing my point.

A tagged unit members isn't a solo. He's opted to play with a team vs other teams. He did not flat out refuse to play with or against organized teams.

The problem of him not having unit members to play with because CW itself isn't compelling? That's another issue.

However the point is that most players in CW want to belong to units - they want teamwork. Just that the gamemode itself still isn't worth it for most the players in most units.

Hence why I say give rewards on a player by player scale. People will congregate into groups over time. It's slowly happening now, smaller units merging to make bigger ones. It's a slow process and rewards for CW are still not even close to worth it for the time involved.

What PGI doesn't seem to get is that it's about how well spent your time feels - with the larger per-match time investment and risk investment it needs an exponential payoff not a linear one.

It needs to draw more players - the solution to that is to make it more appealing to unit members, not try and leverage solo players in as more filler. The solution is getting more units and unit members onboard. Not trying to get more QP solos.

[ArchSight]

Just make FP more exciting to play to draw in more players.

[DarklightCA]

MischiefSC, on 23 April 2016 - 12:42 PM, said:

I think I missed expressing my point.

A tagged unit members isn't a solo. He's opted to play with a team vs other teams. He did not flat out refuse to play with or against organized teams.

The problem of him not having unit members to play with because CW itself isn't compelling? That's another issue.

However the point is that most players in CW want to belong to units - they want teamwork. Just that the gamemode itself still isn't worth it for most the players in most units.

If a player is not dropping in groups, they are a solo player. Just because they are tagged don't make them not a solo player. You have people on these forums admitting to creating a one man unit just so they can solo in the unit queue. I am not debating the actual cooperation of the player in-game, I am stating that when they queue they do so as a individual and not a group.

If players were actually invested with working with units than they would actively look to join active ones. It's been how long now that solo players both tagged and non-tagged have dominated the gamemode and still do. If they haven't found units yet that can form groups with them, it's highly likely that they aren't searching for one and chose to remain solo players. As far as this topic's discussion is concerned, having unit groups form the primary makeup of the team is not a realistic goal because a minority population can't makeup the primary playerbase and not have problems.

Edited by DarklightCA, 23 April 2016 - 01:17 PM.

[madhermit]

maniacos, on 23 April 2016 - 02:38 AM, said:

This would be good and generaly great for balance.
But I don't see how this should work with the acutal playerbase and the actual willingness to play CW.

PGI should first make it more entertaining to play CW. Like half an hour waiting time and then being asswiped by a 12 trained group did not help the reputation of CW much. There been evenings when we hardly saw more than 3 from the same unit and sealclubbed them in one or two waves.

I agree wholeheartedly. I would actually support them getting the basic idea of FW right before implementing matchmaking. Beta since.. 2005?


Also I hope people don't misunderstand. I have nothing against units playing with pugs so long as the GROUP SIZES are balanced. Only people who want to see 12 man tryhard unit dropping on bunch of randoms are the 12 man tryharders who enjoy easy game. I will guarantee that the FW will die again if this happens in the current state of the game.

Edited by madhermit, 23 April 2016 - 01:24 PM.

[JaxRiot]

madhermit, on 22 April 2016 - 10:44 PM, said:

Atleast balance the group sizes so you have 10 man group + 2 solo vs 10 man group + 2 solo instead of 12 man group vs 12 solo.



Edit:

Also I hope people don't misunderstand. I have nothing against units playing with pugs so long as the GROUP SIZES are balanced. Only people who want to see 12 man tryhard unit dropping on bunch of randoms are the 12 man tryharders who enjoy easy game. I will guarantee that the FW will die again if this happens in the current state of the game.

Just so I understand..

Russ is planning on merging the non-unit solo players with group / unit players?

If so, Isnt that what we had before?

[madhermit]

StUffz, on 23 April 2016 - 01:54 AM, said:

Faction Wars is not about single players. It's about playing together as a whole. Or to put it this way:

Interestingly it's the masses of solo players who you want to lure into the game and it will not happen by introducing them to games where they go alone with bunch of other randoms against 12 man organized stomp steamroll squad who say "GG" after 48-2 game.

Furthermore they need to still add community tools INTO THE GAME. Forums are the last place where you want to find other people to play with. But I guess there is no real incentive for developers to do that. Either it is because there are really so few players or the game is so shallow that there is no real point in it but they try to hide the shallow gameplay with flashy advertisements; shock and awe dazzle.

JaxRiot, on 23 April 2016 - 01:29 PM, said:

Just so I understand..

Russ is planning on merging the non-unit solo players with group / unit players?

If so, Isnt that what we had before?

I'm not sure but the hints are leaning towards merging it back the way it used to be. The change I would like them to do to that is balance the group numbers so we don't have 12 man groups just roflstomping randoms until they give up and quit playing.

It's not even debatable that 12 man organized groups have every advantage over a 100% random team. Everything from mech loadouts, to tactics, to experience, communication, knowing their teammates... Literally every-goddamn-thing that goes to a teamgame. And arguing "buh wuh communicate with randoms" won't work. There is no hierarchy in random group. It's the opposite of organization and organizing a group from a pick up group you have known for 30 seconds is a tall order for even the most veteran leaders. Imagine being like somekind old WW2 eastern front german squad leader and they give you bunch of inexperienced old men and young boys from volkssturm to hastily mount a defence/offense against 2 million russians and americans.

Edited by madhermit, 23 April 2016 - 01:39 PM.

[AnTi90d]

If you aren't in a unit, you can't group up with units. The game will not allow it. Whether they directly add you or pick you up from LFG, the game has been coded to spit back an error message.

So there's no point of joining faction TS servers because everyone there is in a unit. You can't group up with them and play with them if you aren't in a unit.

So, if you hadn't already found a unit before CW3, like almost everyone that joined with the Steam launch, you're screwed. Sure, you can make a fake 1 man unit and finally be allowed to play CW again, but you'll be stuck in that fake unit and will have no opportunities to join a real unit.

With this update Russ created a big wall in between new blood and old blood and told anyone that has only been here a few months, "Shut up and give me your money, but you can only play a small portion of the actual game because I only care about older players."

Other than the ten scouting missions I miraculously managed to find matches for in the first day, (the only day anything at all happened in the solo queue,) I haven't seen any single match happen there. LFG is totally useless, as if a unit tries to add you to fill in an empty slot, the game takes a big crap on those plans and won't let them start with you on their side.

That's why I'm considering reversing charges and eating a perma-ban if this god damn queue **** isn't changed, soon.

If people are still bitching about full 12-man unit stomping pug units in CW, which happened a lot more than the god damn 1% that people have claimed, the solution isn't to split the queues back. Just remove all trial mechs from CW decks. That'll stop a lot of the inexperienced pilots that don't have real mechs to play with as well as give those pilots a goal to shoot for: make a drop deck to play the game. Yeah, there will still be one sided matches, but there would be far fewer of them and we wouldn't have a sea of green mechs mulling about, aimlessly, while a battle is taking place.

[Commander A9]

How about we just reset the cues to the way they were before this hideous patch?

Because we all know the cue was absolutely fine before any of this crap went down.

Why? Because significant numbers for solo and unit personnel aren't strong enough to justify separating them, and truly nothing has changed even WITH this patch: 12-man teams are still pug-stomping; the only difference now is that the pugs have tags.

Edited by Commander A9, 23 April 2016 - 01:56 PM.

[MischiefSC]

DarklightCA, on 23 April 2016 - 01:17 PM, said:

If a player is not dropping in groups, they are a solo player. Just because they are tagged don't make them not a solo player. You have people on these forums admitting to creating a one man unit just so they can solo in the unit queue. I am not debating the actual cooperation of the player in-game, I am stating that when they queue they do so as a individual and not a group.

If players were actually invested with working with units than they would actively look to join active ones. It's been how long now that solo players both tagged and non-tagged have dominated the gamemode and still do. If they haven't found units yet that can form groups with them, it's highly likely that they aren't searching for one and chose to remain solo players. As far as this topic's discussion is concerned, having unit groups form the primary makeup of the team is not a realistic goal because a minority population can't makeup the primary playerbase and not have problems.

You know units are more complex than that. I'm a moderately comp-minded player - most my unit is casual though and only a couple play when I do right now. However they're my friends, we've been buds since beta. Unless they all drift off to the Division in not changing units. Most people are in the same boat - units are friends and sometimes your guys are not on but you still want to drop.

Per Russ on Twitter populations are sill pretty much the same. Not many solos went 1man units per Russ. Some, a tiny slice of the population. I've asked him for stats.

However don't mistake pugging for being bad. A lot of us put in the work to find a group - look at those Davion stats. Most of the Davion 12mans filling out those drops were mixed. We have a well-used faction TS. FRR and Kurita and Marik are much the same, they build 12mans from whoever is around. It can be tough to wrangle populations that way and sure, a lot of people will always be solos.

However a ton of members in otherwise CW active units and even full units themselves don't play FW because it's not worth it to them. How many 228 actually play FW regularly? Why do so many not play it?

THAT is the fix. Not making it pug friendly but just a better sense of value for time invested. It should be easier for units to find and fight each other for good practice, it should pay well to help take a world even if you're not in a big unit, it should pay better and overall reward better to help the team win the match than pad your own stats.

That's what we need. Not solos doing what we already know doesn't work playing matches they don't enjoy against units who'd rather be playing someone who tests their skills.

[DarklightCA]

MischiefSC, on 23 April 2016 - 02:03 PM, said:

You know units are more complex than that. I'm a moderately comp-minded player - most my unit is casual though and only a couple play when I do right now. However they're my friends, we've been buds since beta. Unless they all drift off to the Division in not changing units. Most people are in the same boat - units are friends and sometimes your guys are not on but you still want to drop.

Per Russ on Twitter populations are sill pretty much the same. Not many solos went 1man units per Russ. Some, a tiny slice of the population. I've asked him for stats.

However don't mistake pugging for being bad. A lot of us put in the work to find a group - look at those Davion stats. Most of the Davion 12mans filling out those drops were mixed. We have a well-used faction TS. FRR and Kurita and Marik are much the same, they build 12mans from whoever is around. It can be tough to wrangle populations that way and sure, a lot of people will always be solos.

However a ton of members in otherwise CW active units and even full units themselves don't play FW because it's not worth it to them. How many 228 actually play FW regularly? Why do so many not play it?

THAT is the fix. Not making it pug friendly but just a better sense of value for time invested. It should be easier for units to find and fight each other for good practice, it should pay well to help take a world even if you're not in a big unit, it should pay better and overall reward better to help the team win the match than pad your own stats.

That's what we need. Not solos doing what we already know doesn't work playing matches they don't enjoy against units who'd rather be playing someone who tests their skills.

Considering how many variations of units there are and how many of them have individual players that have nobody else to play Community Warfare with, I highly doubt all or even majority of them are on that boat. If you asked Russ and he stated that there are not a lot of 1 man units than I believe you. Doesn't change the fact though that majority of the people who play Community Warfare in the unit queue are queuing it by themselves which makes them solo players.

I also never stated players who pugged were bad, I've never stated that being solo player means you are a bad player. This is not the discussion that is being debated. The OP wants a queue system where groups represent the majority of the playerbase and solo players fill in tiny little gaps. I am stating that groups are a minority in this gamemode and that solo players represent the majority and as such that system is unrealistic.

As for 228, there are a lot of players who play Community Warfare but their activity on it differs because 228 is a competitive unit and majority of the players belong to competitive teams who take competitions as their priority over Community Warfare but they still play it and when they do they group up.

[madhermit]

DarklightCA, on 23 April 2016 - 02:24 PM, said:

The OP wants a queue system where groups represent the majority of the playerbase and solo players fill in tiny little gaps. I am stating that groups are a minority in this gamemode and that solo players represent the majority and as such that system is unrealistic.

Is it so unrealistic though? Possibly the group queue would have to wait longer to get matched with equally sized (+/- 1-2) group and then rest of the spots are filled by the (assumed) large majority of solo players. Maybe what makes it unrealistic is the vast amount of targets people can select, the large number of factions people can divide to that makes such a system unrealistic.

Hmm. What is so unrealistic about it really? I would like to hear clarification to that. Is it the lack of "find match" button which automates the match finding? Small number of actual units playing so they won't populate all the targets? Or is it the 11 possible group sizes that need to be "balanced" or matched with another group which is a rare occurence?

Edited by madhermit, 23 April 2016 - 02:36 PM.

[DarklightCA]

madhermit, on 23 April 2016 - 02:33 PM, said:

Is it so unrealistic though? Possibly the group queue would have to wait longer to get matched with equally sized (+/- 1-2) group and then rest of the spots are filled by the (assumed) large majority of solo players. Maybe what makes it unrealistic is the vast amount of targets people can select, the large number of factions people can divide to that makes such a system unrealistic.

Hmm. What is so unrealistic about it really? I would like to hear clarification to that. Is it the lack of "find match" button which automates the match finding? Small number of actual units playing so they won't populate all the targets? Or is it the 11 possible group sizes that need to be "balanced" or matched with another group which is a rare occurence?

Asking the minority of the players who choose to play with a group to represent the majority of the queue while asking the majority of the players who choose to solo queue to represent the minority of the queue is stupid and unrealistic yes. I mean, that's common sense.

I've already clarified it so unless you are asking me to repeat myself, I'd suggest just re-reading what I said.

[Lazor Sharp]

So what happened to all these whiny getting stomped by the "12man bogeymen " solo players...? Ya would think that if there were so damn many of them as they claimed, they would be tag less, and the solo tag less invasion Q would be full up with players avoiding the premade 12 man bogeymen, but NO, they go make 1 man units, and are still B******* complaining about getting stomped by Unit TEAMS, in a team based game.....lol....lol....lol...olo.........

Edited by Lazor Sharp, 23 April 2016 - 03:28 PM.

[MischiefSC]

DarklightCA, on 23 April 2016 - 02:24 PM, said:

Considering how many variations of units there are and how many of them have individual players that have nobody else to play Community Warfare with, I highly doubt all or even majority of them are on that boat. If you asked Russ and he stated that there are not a lot of 1 man units than I believe you. Doesn't change the fact though that majority of the people who play Community Warfare in the unit queue are queuing it by themselves which makes them solo players.

I also never stated players who pugged were bad, I've never stated that being solo player means you are a bad player. This is not the discussion that is being debated. The OP wants a queue system where groups represent the majority of the playerbase and solo players fill in tiny little gaps. I am stating that groups are a minority in this gamemode and that solo players represent the majority and as such that system is unrealistic.

As for 228, there are a lot of players who play Community Warfare but their activity on it differs because 228 is a competitive unit and majority of the players belong to competitive teams who take competitions as their priority over Community Warfare but they still play it and when they do they group up.

Ah. Gotcha.

I agree -

Hence I say rewards need to be on a per-match basis, player by player. So your 228 8man drops with 4 solos against a NS 12man. If you win the payout is WAY higher, so the solos are motivated to work with you to win. Those solos help you flip the world they get a taste of the MC rewards based on matches they were in that won.

You're right. Big units can't carry FW. What we need is motivation for solos/small groups to coordinate for wins with big groups to drive wins, not just tier own stats.

Better coordination tools, recruitment, training and onboarding would help a lot. A communal training area for private matches with a visible lobby, etc.

Edited by MischiefSC, 23 April 2016 - 04:44 PM.

[Karamarka]

kapusta11, on 23 April 2016 - 01:47 AM, said:

More solo players? Isn't the whole point of merging the queues is because there's simly not enough players to support solo queue?

Exactly.

[vandalhooch]

FYI I did a count tonight of top 1000 merc and loyalist units.

340/1000 merc units were single pilots

481/1000 loyalist units were single pilots

That's why the solo queues are so long.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

vandalhooch, on 23 April 2016 - 10:31 PM, said:

FYI I did a count tonight of top 1000 merc and loyalist units.

340/1000 merc units were single pilots

481/1000 loyalist units were single pilots

That's why the solo queues are so long.

^ This exactly.

It's not that there aren't enough players dropping solo, it's that they're dropping solo in the Unit Queue.

What we need is to redefine the Queues so that the split is Solo or Group (instead of Solo or Unit).

IN ADDITION, we need to improve the tools for grouping so that solo players can easily find groups to join and groups can easily find more players to play with.

We need a serious LFG/LFM system that displays all players and all groups!!!

We need ACCESS!!!

Edited by Brandarr Gunnarson, 23 April 2016 - 10:47 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Brandarr Gunnarson, on 23 April 2016 - 10:47 PM, said:

^ This exactly.

It's not that there aren't enough players dropping solo, it's that they're dropping solo in the Unit Queue.

What we need is to redefine the Queues so that the split is Solo or Group (instead of Solo or Unit).

IN ADDITION, we need to improve the tools for grouping so that solo players can easily find groups to join and groups can easily find more players to play with.

We need a serious LFG/LFM system that displays all players and all groups!!!

We need ACCESS!!!

Except there's several thousand unit members dropping in unit queue. The solo players are maybe 10%-15%, if even, just in unit queue. That's the issue - right now there just aren't a lot of actual dedicated solos. Unit or solo queue. That's why Russ is saying he wants to merge the queues.

Which I'm against BTW. I'd rather we give more value to dropping in both solo and unit to attract more people to FW all together instead of try and just smash the people playing together.