23 replies to this topic

[SteelMantis]

Like a lot of people I want to see a solo queue for FP. But there are two problems that always come up.

One: Seal farmers can easily sync drop into matches.
and
Two: Taking all of the pugs out of the group queue could kill group queue.

So it seems to me that if there was a solo queue that required everyone to have a Freelancer contract to join that could solve both problems. Since Freelancers don't have a faction as soon as 8 or 24 of them queued up the match could start and distribute the players randomly between the two teams. That would make sync dropping as group all on the same side almost impossible.

Also since Freelancer contracts offer less rewards than Merc/Faction contracts and are unlikely to be taken by anyone in a unit the main queue would still have people in it to fill groups.

[Sjorpha]

That is the exact model they tried when introducing Phase 3, what happened then was that there wasn't enough players in the freelancer queue for it to work.

Could try it again, but it's likely the result would be the same again.

[Emeraudes]

SteelMantis, on 02 June 2017 - 03:55 AM, said:

Like a lot of people I want to see a solo queue for FP. But there are two problems that always come up.

One: Seal farmers can easily sync drop into matches.
and
Two: Taking all of the pugs out of the group queue could kill group queue.

So it seems to me that if there was a solo queue that required everyone to have a Freelancer contract to join that could solve both problems. Since Freelancers don't have a faction as soon as 8 or 24 of them queued up the match could start and distribute the players randomly between the two teams. That would make sync dropping as group all on the same side almost impossible.

Also since Freelancer contracts offer less rewards than Merc/Faction contracts and are unlikely to be taken by anyone in a unit the main queue would still have people in it to fill groups.

While I can see this working, the incentive for joining a faction is that you get mechbays and MC for ranking up as a merc or as a loyalist. It'll be difficult to balance the incentives for just being a freelancer with a separate queue.

[Admiral-Dan]

SteelMantis, on 02 June 2017 - 03:55 AM, said:

Since Freelancers don't have a faction as soon as 8 or 24 of them queued up the match could start and distribute the players randomly between the two teams.

„As soon“ in this case means after only one or two hours waiting.

Edited by AlphaEtOmega, 02 June 2017 - 07:30 AM.

[SteelMantis]

Sjorpha, on 02 June 2017 - 04:01 AM, said:

That is the exact model they tried when introducing Phase 3, what happened then was that there wasn't enough players in the freelancer queue for it to work.

Could try it again, but it's likely the result would be the same again.

It seems like there were a few differences, if I recall correctly people without a unit with loyalist contracts could still drop in the solo queue which would have left it open to sync dropping if it had caught on. More importantly I'm fairly sure that we still had multiple buckets which split the solo queue into several different queues all trying to fill at once. I suspect with a single bucket games would pop more often. There were other factors that hurt the 12 man games in the first attempt at a solo queue as well. I think a big one was Scouting mode dropping at the same time. I was in the solo queue back then and scouting games were popping with short wait times. Scouting was a shiny new game mode at that time and some of the people in the solo just focused on playing it instead of 12 man.

Emeraudes, on 02 June 2017 - 04:55 AM, said:

While I can see this working, the incentive for joining a faction is that you get mechbays and MC for ranking up as a merc or as a loyalist. It'll be difficult to balance the incentives for just being a freelancer with a separate queue.

I was thinking Freelancer could have it's own ranks that were the same as the Merc ranks but take twice as much LP to level. Enough to give new people a taste of the rewards. Then they could either stay in the solo queue and have a very long grind to the higher rank rewards or move over to the main queue with a little experience under their belts.

[Leggin Ho]

One thing to look at, I think we had a total of 99 players in the event as Freelancer would that be enough or would the que be crazy long like last time.

[Buster Machine 0]

Sjorpha, on 02 June 2017 - 04:01 AM, said:

That is the exact model they tried when introducing Phase 3, what happened then was that there wasn't enough players in the freelancer queue for it to work.

Could try it again, but it's likely the result would be the same again.

Still better than having pugs dropping against premades, getting stomped, and losing interest in playing the game.

[Emeraudes]

SteelMantis, on 02 June 2017 - 07:32 AM, said:

I was thinking Freelancer could have it's own ranks that were the same as the Merc ranks but take twice as much LP to level. Enough to give new people a taste of the rewards. Then they could either stay in the solo queue and have a very long grind to the higher rank rewards or move over to the main queue with a little experience under their belts.

Then you'll soon see people flood into freelancers for the rewards as well. Quite a lot of us have maxed out on several factions.

[James Argent]

One or two seal clubbers in a drop is not a problem. They may club, they may be pivotal in a win, but they can be identified and dealt with without the rest of their unit backing them up...err, I mean competing with each other to club the seals.

Tag/no tag is not the issue. The issue is an entire team of seal clubbers up against an entire team of seals, or even just normal players. It would be instructive to see just how 'gud' some of the clubbers 'git' when they're on their own.

[Commander A9]

Good luck finding a match as 24 freelancers.

They tried that once.

No one could find a match...

So everyone made 1-man units and the 'problem' of FW/CW wasn't 'solved.'

The problem with Faction Warfare is not in the game mode.

The 'problem' with Faction Warfare is how players choose to play it.

[Grus]

SteelMantis, on 02 June 2017 - 03:55 AM, said:

Like a lot of people I want to see a solo queue for FP. But there are two problems that always come up.

One: Seal farmers can easily sync drop into matches.
and
Two: Taking all of the pugs out of the group queue could kill group queue.

So it seems to me that if there was a solo queue that required everyone to have a Freelancer contract to join that could solve both problems. Since Freelancers don't have a faction as soon as 8 or 24 of them queued up the match could start and distribute the players randomly between the two teams. That would make sync dropping as group all on the same side almost impossible.

Also since Freelancer contracts offer less rewards than Merc/Faction contracts and are unlikely to be taken by anyone in a unit the main queue would still have people in it to fill groups.

no..

[LordNothing]

ive always said that freelancer needs to be noob mode.

you can do a leaky bucket system to keep the buckets acceptable. you have a noob bucket for freelancers where no teams larger than a lance are permitted. an elite bucket for groups of 8 or more, and the general population. all 3 buckets leak into the others and the general population bucket is the pressure valve for when the extreme edge buckets dont have enough players, they are used as infill for elite games and can be thrown into noob games if they need players. if a team wants to drop against the general population they can be no more than 2 lances, dropping as 12 will only look for matches in the elite queue, or might split the team up into 2 matches if nothing is found in a sane amount of time. freelancers might occasionally be thrown into an elite match when there is a 2 or less player disparity between the two teams. its good for them to rub elbows with people who know what they are doing.

or just simplify it all down to only letting freelancers drop in games where there is a 1-lance or less team disparity. and give them a queue so they can wait in line for those games. give them a short skill tree so they can win a viable drop deck before being allowed to change career path. 1st reward is a light mech, second is a medium, 3rd is a heavy and 4th is an assault, 5th node unlocks career selection.

[Emeraudes]

James Argent, on 02 June 2017 - 10:59 AM, said:

One or two seal clubbers in a drop is not a problem. They may club, they may be pivotal in a win, but they can be identified and dealt with without the rest of their unit backing them up...err, I mean competing with each other to club the seals.

Tag/no tag is not the issue. The issue is an entire team of seal clubbers up against an entire team of seals, or even just normal players. It would be instructive to see just how 'gud' some of the clubbers 'git' when they're on their own.

Well if this is implemented, we'll just have to see how it affects queue times.That's one of my main concerns. Getting good teams to fight is really just a matter of active population, more people playing correlates to better available opponents.

[naterist]

Inherent problem there, if you arent fighting for a faction, its not faction play. Its qp with respawns.

[zortesh]

naterist, on 03 June 2017 - 01:59 AM, said:

Inherent problem there, if you arent fighting for a faction, its not faction play. Its qp with respawns.

Maybe qp with respawns is what we should change it to..... it'd certainly reduce queue times and make it alot more balanced.

[James Argent]

Queue times are a factor of active population. What we have now is not encouraging the growth of FW population. Complaining about queue times in a split-queue environment is like complaining that you don't want to stop eating the seed corn.

[maxdest]

There have been exactly 20 players whom have dropped freelance more than 10 games since Tuk 3.

Even the best will in the world and a 1000% increase is not going to allow a freeance queue.

[Willard Phule]

They already have one, it's called "Quick Play."

[justcallme A S H]

LOL @ Freelancer Q...

Someone was horribly uneducated.

maxdest, on 03 June 2017 - 12:03 PM, said:

There have been exactly 20 players whom have dropped freelance more than 10 games since Tuk 3.

Even the best will in the world and a 1000% increase is not going to allow a freeance queue.

It's amazing how many people make comments/suggestions without any idea about the mode itself.

It is almost like - they don't play it.

[Black Ivan]

Won't work. FP does not attract big amounts of new players or they leave rapidly after the first few experiences.

To make a secon Que worth it FP needs much bigger popultion, but I doubt it that without redesign of the mode this would happen.