182 replies to this topic

[Clownwarlord]

I like Faction Warfare, but then I hate Faction Warfare. I play Faction Warfare as a solo player, and every so often I get an invite to join a group while I am playing (sometimes I do sometimes I do not). The best matches I have seen are when it is skittles vs skittles (usually after a Faction Warfare patch or during FW event); or actually I feel and find it that those matches have a higher probability of being more fun and they usually turn out to be close matches. When you start by putting groups on one side and then leaving skittles on the other the matches I feel skew towards stomps. So if I had it my way I would rather cap off group size at 4 mans. Then I would limit 2 four mans per side. The reason I like that idea is because, the bigger the groups the more inconsistent balance of the matches. A 12 man should almost always beat a skittle team.

As for a 12 man vs a 12 man though it comes down to team work and player skills. Lets face it some units are better than others and when it comes to that you will have another balancing issue that can not be as easily solved. Yes you could do a PSR match maker, but then you have the issue of waiting forever for your big group to get paired against another big group with a similar PSR. On top of that you have to then fill gaps of those big groups that are not 12 mans with skittles usually or small groups which then skews balancing even more.

So the easiest way to make balanced matches in Faction Warfare in my opinion is to either get rid of big groups or have only 12 mans. The issue with having only 12 mans is then you are limiting the number of people or units that can even field a 12 man on a regular bases to fill the bucket of Faction Warfare for even these groups to get matches. So in other words you wouldn't have a number of buckets issue, but instead an issue of limiting what can fill that bucket. On the other hand of limiting group sizes to 4 you do not run into this issue. The only issue you have is people being angry because they do not get to play with all their friends at the same time. What you do not have is an issue with Faction Warfare though. You do not run into a buckets issue, you do not run into a limiting of what can fill that bucket because every unit that could make up a 12 man can still make up three 4 mans instead, and it actually will help with balancing Faction Warfare or better allowing for a match maker if it is required.

Edited by Clownwarlord, 03 February 2017 - 06:09 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

If you don't allow people to drop as a group, you kill the game mode.

Plenty of people drop in 1-11mans.

Forcing people into 4mans will not balance it at all. They will simply hit "search" at the same time in an effort to sync drop - as what has been happening in QP since, forever. Given there is only one side in IS v Clan (unlike QP), it's almost a gaurantee the "3" 4mans will end up in the same drop, or at least 8 of them will.

So this idea is redundant before it starts.

[Clownwarlord]

justcallme A S H, on 03 February 2017 - 06:18 PM, said:

If you don't allow people to drop as a group, you kill the game mode.

Plenty of people drop in 1-11mans.

Forcing people into 4mans will not balance it at all. They will simply hit "search" at the same time in an effort to sync drop - as what has been happening in QP since, forever. Given there is only one side in IS v Clan (unlike QP), it's almost a gaurantee the "3" 4mans will end up in the same drop, or at least 8 of them will.

So this idea is redundant before it starts.

You are missing something though, with smaller groups and solo players only it allows for a more fluid match maker to balance matches in a timely fashion. With big groups you are unable to do this if at all in a timely fashion because you would have to have timed valves released otherwise you run into an issue of those bigger groups waiting forever for the right opponent.

[justcallme A S H]

I'm not missing anything.

You don't understand what it is to sync drop. If you are the only bunch that hit search, you're basically paired. MWO and FP Population, generally, isn't high enough all the time.

Hence you see even in TP - T4 being paired with T1 - population.

[Clownwarlord]

justcallme A S H, on 03 February 2017 - 07:00 PM, said:

I'm not missing anything.

You don't understand what it is to sync drop. If you are the only bunch that hit search, you're basically paired. MWO and FP Population, generally, isn't high enough all the time.

Hence you see even in TP - T4 being paired with T1 - population.

But with smaller groups you can have a match maker be implemented and thus in side you match maker you can build it to help prevent sync drops. Also by limiting 2 small groups per side you will never see a 12 man sync drop unless everyone sync drops individually and then the very same match maker will pair up only for a balanced match. In other words some will and some wont get into the same match as the others. I would rather have that then have an automatic 12 man vs a skittles group. Because as seen 12 mans crushing skittles has deterred some from ever returning to FW or MWO all together. So leaving as is, is not going to help either.

[MischiefSC]

Plus it would just get more people to quit. Bads would still get stomped by less bads. All it would do is try to force FW, at this point literally the only facet of a team v team gets that actually allows teams, to be more like QP.

If you don't want to play in teams or put that degree of effort in then why the flying **** are you playing in FW?

Skittles teams who group up and put effort forward win just fine. Even against larger coordinated teams. Why does the whole game, every bit and corner, need to be designed around the lowest common denominator? Why should every level of award be available to the lowest level of effort and performance?

Group queue is gone - it's now 3 casual buddies queue. We have pug queue where you can run a 6 MG King Crab with LRMs and consistently do well because the system will find other players so terrible they will still lose to that.

Come pug in FW. We all do sometimes. Just understand that someone putting in the effort to bring a good deck and a minimal effort to coordinate with their team is going to consistently beat people who don't.

Quit trying to make FW a shallow, pointless and li.ited as QP. It's a 12v12 game. Quit trying to force people to play with less than 12 or act like actually having 12 people together is some sort of exploit or cheat used to abuse people who don't want to put even that minimal amount of effort in.

I've put forward all manner of ways to handle match making or rewards to help group people up or reward people for putting in the effort to win even against the odds. A system designed to punish people for not being terrible or playing in a group in a group game is not a solution.

Edited by MischiefSC, 03 February 2017 - 07:35 PM.

[KingCobra]

ClownLord said (The best matches I have seen are when it is skittles vs skittles)

That's why I say just split the FW Queues skittles Vs skittles with no groups in those MM queues then make a mm queue for groups simple enough to do no more groups seal clubbing solo/casual/new players.

And big groups get what they are afraid to do play other group that's why Russ and PGI have not split the FW queue is there butttt buddies in groups cry in there ears on twittard all day long against a split FW queue system because all they want to do is seal club everyone 24/7.

[xX PUG Xx]

I literally couldn't care less anymore, if PGI split the Solo / Group queue the same way as QP is there would STILL be "blah,blah balance is wrong" threads.

[Clownwarlord]

xX PUG Xx, on 03 February 2017 - 07:48 PM, said:

I literally couldn't care less anymore, if PGI split the Solo / Group queue the same way as QP is there would STILL be "blah,blah balance is wrong" threads.

Well they tried that the issue is PGI implemented it horribly. What PGI did is they took all the solo mercs and solo loyalists and threw them against groups. Which was barely enough to fill the holes for the groups of any size to get matches. On the other side FW for solos was for solos not of mercs or loyalist which was not enough to keep it going and the fact that they got nothing in benefits for particpating (no leveling system no bonus cbills for a win, nothing is what they got except what they could earn more quickly and easily in quick play). To many buckets basically because one wont live with out the other's players.

So we could go to a 12 man vs 12 man only problem is then not all inclusive (which some would get angry over just like group people are angry over limiting group size), still unbalanced matches without a match maker (which would slow down matches and most likely same people fight the same people over and over), and on top of that you would limit the number of people who can participate in Faction Warfare overall which would force to not a 24 hour game mode.

Edited by Clownwarlord, 03 February 2017 - 08:02 PM.

[Marius Evander]

MischiefSC, on 03 February 2017 - 07:33 PM, said:

If you don't want to play in teams or put that degree of effort in then why the flying **** are you playing in FW?

FOR TEH MECH BAYS AND LOYALIST REP REWARDS BRAH !!!

Seriously, with this less bukits system and no new scouting seperate shiny new game to pull people away they could easily split it into solo drop only or 2+ drop(excluding 11 of course).

[Clownwarlord]

Sean Lang "Phil" wants a system of 12 man vs 12 man and the game mode is only active during specific parts of the day. This could be done the problem you run into is that MWO itself does not have a big enough active player base as is. You would have to first dump all players into units, and then all the units would have to field multiple 12 mans (nothing short of a 12 man because not allowed). Then after all that they would have to be active at the same time period of lets say three 4 hour periods.

This idea is similar to WoT which I played in for years and it worked for them the issue is how would you setup match generation? For WoT the units would drop tokens on an area and it would be a mini tournament to see who comes out on top to win that area.

The issue with that is you would spread out the buckets again for every planet on a border for that system to be the same. Or you would have to have a hundred times bigger player base.

So what would you suggest to make this idea work since some of you disagree with small groups and solo players only?

[justcallme A S H]

Clownwarlord, on 03 February 2017 - 07:22 PM, said:

But with smaller groups you can have a match maker be implemented and thus in side you match maker you can build it to help prevent sync drops. Also by limiting 2 small groups per side you will never see a 12 man sync drop unless everyone sync drops individually and then the very same match maker will pair up only for a balanced match. In other words some will and some wont get into the same match as the others. I would rather have that then have an automatic 12 man vs a skittles group. Because as seen 12 mans crushing skittles has deterred some from ever returning to FW or MWO all together. So leaving as is, is not going to help either.

In times of low population - approx 8-12hrs every 24, there is simply NOT the population. In the peak US/EU (8hrs total) it will work. That leaves a very large gap where it will not.

So now you are talking 2 group limit and the rest solo droppers? How complex is this system meant to be? If you limit it like that people could wait 20mins for a match simply because there are no PUGs searching.


Sorry to say but this idea is just not going to work.

What will work:

1. Get onto TS hubs
2. Find some teams to drop with
3. Get into a group


And voila - Stop complaining about dropping solo being a problem. I would rather not have extremely excessive wait times, which is exactly what you are suggesting, will cause.

xX PUG Xx, on 03 February 2017 - 07:48 PM, said:

I literally couldn't care less anymore, if PGI split the Solo / Group queue the same way as QP is there would STILL be "blah,blah balance is wrong" threads.

Exactly. Nothing will change. How people cannot see that - I don't know.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 03 February 2017 - 08:38 PM.

[Clownwarlord]

justcallme A S H, on 03 February 2017 - 08:36 PM, said:

In times of low population - approx 8-12hrs every 24, there is simply NOT the population. In the peak US/EU (8hrs total) it will work. That leaves a very large gap where it will not.

So now you are talking 2 group limit and the rest solo droppers? How complex is this system meant to be? If you limit it like that people could wait 20mins for a match simply because there are no PUGs searching.


Sorry to say but this idea is just not going to work.

What will work:

1. Get onto TS hubs
2. Find some teams to drop with
3. Get into a group


And voila - Stop complaining about dropping solo being a problem. I would rather not have extremely excessive wait times, which is exactly what you are suggesting, will cause.

1. The hubs are not adequately posted for people that are solo to get into. I have been pushing for years that a stickey thread get made with ALL TS that are open for people to drop into but no such luck. And when you do go into the hubs that are open they usually are empty actually outside of events I would say they are always empty.
2. Done that but activity levels always drop outside of events and after a patch so that there isn very rarely a consistent group to hang out with.
3. Done that and refer to 2 because it is the same thing (group / team, are same thing).

Furthermore on the TS subject using the MWO search function to find active team speaks is a pain in the *** because their search engine is always broke even when it does find results the results are never what you are looking for.

Example of what I am referring to is this thread, first search result https://mwomercs.com...mspeak-servers/

Over half the TS information is outdated and either doesn't work or you go into and there is no one in them willing to participate in FW because current system sucks and is broken. This is why i am trying to come up with solutions to possibly revive FW.

Your way is status quo which is causing a slow death of the game mode.

Edited by Clownwarlord, 03 February 2017 - 08:47 PM.

[MischiefSC]

No issue at all with another split on solo/unit queue. The short time it happened before the caliber of matches in the unit queue went up - though wait times for Clans rose as the suicide puggles were not there, they were all waiting in their relative defense queue.

So long as you can't take planets in pug queue. Simple concept - you don't get to dodge playing good teams and still win 'wars'. You want to win wars, you play the best the other side has to offer. You want to hide from everyone organized or skilled you don't get the same tier of 'prizes'.

[Clownwarlord]

MischiefSC, on 03 February 2017 - 08:50 PM, said:

No issue at all with another split on solo/unit queue. The short time it happened before the caliber of matches in the unit queue went up - though wait times for Clans rose as the suicide puggles were not there, they were all waiting in their relative defense queue.

So long as you can't take planets in pug queue. Simple concept - you don't get to dodge playing good teams and still win 'wars'. You want to win wars, you play the best the other side has to offer. You want to hide from everyone organized or skilled you don't get the same tier of 'prizes'.

The problem is, your 11 mans, your 10 mans, your 9 mans, your 8 mans, and maybe even so on would run into getting a match issue with horrible wait times without the solos. Why? Because not a big enough player base.

[MischiefSC]

Clownwarlord, on 03 February 2017 - 08:59 PM, said:

The problem is, your 11 mans, your 10 mans, your 9 mans, your 8 mans, and maybe even so on would run into getting a match issue with horrible wait times without the solos. Why? Because not a big enough player base.

We did alright - it works like group queue. 2+ goes into the queue, you can't drop with 11. People will spend the extra 60-90 seconds to either pick someone up in LFG or message someone to fill their team out before they drop.

I'm willing to give it a shot - I would find it a better option than saying I can't play MWO with a team, which would be absurd.

[Clownwarlord]

MischiefSC, on 03 February 2017 - 09:03 PM, said:

We did alright - it works like group queue. 2+ goes into the queue, you can't drop with 11. People will spend the extra 60-90 seconds to either pick someone up in LFG or message someone to fill their team out before they drop.

I'm willing to give it a shot - I would find it a better option than saying I can't play MWO with a team, which would be absurd.

The issue is the same that the overall game faces, not a big enough player base to separate the buckets. Also people would stop playing FW solo if they are to not get anything as a reward. So why play then? People would do what they are doing now, leaving. On top of that, you create another bucket which is one the things I was trying not to do with my solution.

Edited by Clownwarlord, 03 February 2017 - 09:33 PM.

[Clownwarlord]

Basically I am just trying to find a solution that keeps one bucket, but makes for better matches as in closer results. The best matches that meet that, that I have found in all of FW have been in skittles vs skittles. But if anyone has a better idea that:

1- Keeps only one bucket.
2- Better balanced matches (closer games consistently).
3- Rewarding.

Others would argue it needs these, but I don't care about them:
a. all inclusive (solos to big groups)
b. faction differences
c. loyalist, merc, freelancer differences

I am all for it. What there is now it meets 1 and misses on 2 and 3. Maybe this game mode would be good enough if it at least met 2 out of the 3. As for the other group (a through c) they do not matter to me but they matter to others so I try to balance them into my suggestion of no groups bigger than a 4 man, but then you piss of another group that wants to play with big groups.

So how about you try to come up with a solution that has all of the things I listed above because if you get rid of one (like big groups) you get people angry.

- Keep only one bucket
- Better balanced matches (closer games consistently)
- Rewarding
- All inclusive (solo to big groups)
- Faction Differences
- Loyalist, Merc, Freelancer differences

What do you come up with?

Oh forgot this: must be able to get matches in a timely fashion.

Edited by Clownwarlord, 03 February 2017 - 09:39 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Except most teams would leave. Currently FW is the only mode that lets you play with a team. If I can only play in a 4man, why are we playing in FW?

Pugs would get loyalty point rewards, all that stuff. Just can't take/tag planets.

If we're going to make changes that would be the least negative as it would protect people who just want to go derp in the FW mode for mech bays from playing against teams that show up wanting to play without completely eliminating the main reason teams play FW.

[Deathlike]

KingCobra, on 03 February 2017 - 07:38 PM, said:

ClownLord said (The best matches I have seen are when it is skittles vs skittles)

That's why I say just split the FW Queues skittles Vs skittles with no groups in those MM queues then make a mm queue for groups simple enough to do no more groups seal clubbing solo/casual/new players.

And big groups get what they are afraid to do play other group that's why Russ and PGI have not split the FW queue is there butttt buddies in groups cry in there ears on twittard all day long against a split FW queue system because all they want to do is seal club everyone 24/7.

I would argue skittles vs skittles are the worst.

"Close" games tend to be chaotic... because very little teamwork (let alone intelligence) is actually being applied.

Skittles groups teach you nothing, and allow bad habits to be exhibited there.

It's bad for the game as a whole.

Edited by Deathlike, 03 February 2017 - 09:51 PM.