3 replies to this topic

[Dex Spero]

I just read the great Professor Dakka post from Paul Inouye about how to read the planet/queue info and it explained lots but I am still uncertain about how the system is building teams and I'm curious about 1 thing that happened.

Specifically... I selected a planet, hit "Defend", and was waiting in the "Preparing to Drop" screen. I saw a 2-person group queued, and 8 of us in the single person column. Yay! Any second now we'll be good to go!

Suddenly, the "Groups in Queue" columns are completely empty and there's a big blue arrow in the defend queue arrows that wasn't there 5 seconds ago. Unless I'm mistaken this means a complete team has been formed and they are waiting for their opponents. But even though I was queued with them before there were 12 players, I'm not part of the team. Why? I'm assuming the team is made up of the same people I was queue with since their yellow bars are now gone from the groups in queue columns.

I WASN'T CHOSEN! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! (repressed memory rising... 7 years old... not getting chosen for dodgeball team... wetting pants in public... fetal position required... neural shutdown imminent...)

I'm not complaining, I'm just curious about what happened and why so I can better understand how this all works.

Edit: I should add that when the big blue arrow appeared I started to think I was part of that complete team and there just a delay in the screen change... but after several minutes waiting, nothing happened, and then yellow bars started appearing again as people started requeueing (is that even a word???) again.

Thanks!

Edited by Dex Spero, 06 November 2016 - 02:33 PM.

[Mawcor]

My best guess? A group of 3 joined the queue, you just didn't see it because the moment they did there were enough pilots to form a team, so that happened immediately.

There was one group of two, and then eight solo players, which comes total of ten. Twelve is needed, so as soon as the queues had two more players a drop would be formed. But you were left behind, and it sounds like no one else was, so I'm guessing that three players joined, bringing it to thirteen players total in the queue when the group was formed. A drop can only consist of exactly twelve players, so someone had to left behind in the queue. You were the unlucky winner.

From what I can tell the system could be said to have a certain favoritism for larger groups, but I actually think this is for for the best. Larger groups are more likely to (have more mechs) be in communication with each other, which I've found very, very important in faction play. I would also expect it to be much more frustrating to have the matchmaker split one's group into separate matches than to have to wait a bit longer when one is a smaller group or solo. (Not to say they can't both be frustrating, just that the former seems way more harmful to the game's survival than the latter.) It would be bad to split up the group, there weren't enough to launch without including the group and with the addition of the group they had too many to form one group. Thus, the only solution would be to leave someone behind, who had gotten there before the three-group joined.

This all said, I don't play FP all that much, or follow it closely, so it's possible my best guess gets things wrong.

[Dex Spero]

Mawcor, on 06 November 2016 - 03:26 PM, said:

My best guess? A group of 3 joined the queue, you just didn't see it because the moment they did there were enough pilots to form a team, so that happened immediately.

There was one group of two, and then eight solo players, which comes total of ten. Twelve is needed, so as soon as the queues had two more players a drop would be formed. But you were left behind, and it sounds like no one else was, so I'm guessing that three players joined, bringing it to thirteen players total in the queue when the group was formed. A drop can only consist of exactly twelve players, so someone had to left behind in the queue. You were the unlucky winner.

From what I can tell the system could be said to have a certain favoritism for larger groups, but I actually think this is for for the best. Larger groups are more likely to (have more mechs) be in communication with each other, which I've found very, very important in faction play. I would also expect it to be much more frustrating to have the matchmaker split one's group into separate matches than to have to wait a bit longer when one is a smaller group or solo. (Not to say they can't both be frustrating, just that the former seems way more harmful to the game's survival than the latter.) It would be bad to split up the group, there weren't enough to launch without including the group and with the addition of the group they had too many to form one group. Thus, the only solution would be to leave someone behind, who had gotten there before the three-group joined.

This all said, I don't play FP all that much, or follow it closely, so it's possible my best guess gets things wrong.

Makes sense! Thanks Mawcor!

[Leone]

Mostly right. Addendum though.

The system pulls those who've waited for the longest into the game, so, by being left out the first time, your guaranteed the next solo slot available. Of course, if a full team of twelve queues up, you'll be waiting for them to clear and get a match if you manage to get a full twelve grouped up. With any luck however, things'll be fairly even, numbers wise and you wont seem many folk waiting for ghost drops.

~Leone.