864 replies to this topic

[Tatula]

Just sync drop. It doesn't work 100% of the time, but when it works, you get what you want. When it doesn't, you have a chance to kill your friend (or him you).

[a le Roi]

Anastasius Foht, on 14 June 2018 - 07:52 AM, said:

Groups care only about themselfs, i saw many multiplayer games where soloQ was allowed to play with small group, all they do -its only care for each other using another team as meat shields and not responding at ANY team calls like "Help" or "We need to push". Im not even talking about "genius" who trying to ask for "small" 4 mans group, its not small its 1/3 pls use math.
Instead, my proposal to DIVIDE "SoloQ Rating" and "Group Rating", top stats guys play like 40 games for season in 12 mens groups, get 3-4 KDA and 2-3 W/L, i see no point to mix this guys with solo only ones.

That is true. But it also remains true in group matches where everyone is in a group.

If small groups were massively better at coordinating themselves, group queue matches would see a lot more team-wide coordination than solo queue matches. They don't. As you said, the opposite is often true.

And that, right there, is the reason why 2-4 person groups mixed with solo players would not be massively unbalancing. Especially if there is an equal number of pre-made groups on both sides.

[a le Roi]

Aloha, on 14 June 2018 - 08:02 AM, said:

Just sync drop. It doesn't work 100% of the time, but when it works, you get what you want. When it doesn't, you have a chance to kill your friend (or him you).

That's a good suggestion and sure beats having to wait 10+ minutes for an all-group game.

But what difference does it make to the match balance if I join a random game with my friend in a pre-made group or through sync dropping?

If sync dropping isn't unbalancing, neither should be group dropping.

[KHETTI]

a le Roi, on 14 June 2018 - 08:11 AM, said:

That's a good suggestion and sure beats having to wait 10+ minutes for an all-group game.

But what difference does it make to the match balance if I join a random game with my friend in a pre-made group or through sync dropping?

If sync dropping isn't unbalancing, neither should be group dropping.

Sync dropping when it works is every bit as unbalancing as letting organized groups in solo queue, seems modern day gaming is all about grouped players stomping randoms, because that's an accurate indication of skill, isn't it!.
Atleast be honest about it, you want eze mode so you can post humble brag threads of how leet you are at stomping headless chickens.
BTW MWO and games like it would still be a team based game if grouping wasn't allowed at all, "but but but IT'S A TEAM BASED GAME" is the most ******** excuse for promoting/justifying imbalance in matches.

[Tatula]

a le Roi, on 14 June 2018 - 08:11 AM, said:

That's a good suggestion and sure beats having to wait 10+ minutes for an all-group game. But what difference does it make to the match balance if I join a random game with my friend in a pre-made group or through sync dropping? If sync dropping isn't unbalancing, neither should be group dropping.

Sync dropping is a loophole. It's allowed simply because there's no way PGI can prevent it. Twitch streamers do it all the time. The difference it makes is probably not much for a couple of regular players, but if two Tier 0 (that's what I call the comp guys) players drop in a QP match together, they can probably carry the team easily. Even a single Tier 0 player can carry a match sometimes (actually a lot of times).

[Haipyng]

a le Roi, on 14 June 2018 - 07:38 AM, said:

One man with a mic can swing a pug game without much effort. That's still not a reason to ban everyone with a mic from the solo queue.

Of course it can affect balance. But so can two random players who decided to talk to each other. Or four players in a lance who decide to actually play as a lance.

There's nothing magic about 2 friends who want to play together vs. 2 strangers who decide to cooperate.

You make good points. Small groups just haven't been a priority since they shut down letting small groups in Quick Play (aka "Solo Queue") I am totally for it. At least up to 3 mans. I highly doubt however you will generate enough interest.

Trouble is coordinated large group players (6+) in GQ enjoy dropping against a bunch of 2, 3, or 4 man groups. They have a big advantage. Their retort is always "join bigger groups then", even if you and your friends are casual players not wanting or having time to scrim or join practices.

Many of these same GQ players also promote the fear that very small groups in Quick Play are going to massively turn the tide in a match, forgetting all about the advantages larger premades get in GQ. Those that exclusively play QP, buy into this and repeat the objections out of fear.

I wish you luck, but this subset of players is considered unimportant, even if it is part of the reason we have chased away so many new players.

[arcana75]

A group inside QuickPlay is not good for several reasons:

1) It breaks tonnage matchmaking, or messes it up. In random solo queue, the MM can make better choices to mix and match the 12v12. Consider what happens when this group of 2-4 friends decide to eg all field Assaults.

2) Teamwork is OP and pre-arranged teamwork is even more OP. Consider 2-4 friends who decide to all field Assaults or all Lights, and not only that, field complementary loadouts eg 1 lurmboat, 1 narc, 1 pinpoint, 1 critboat. Then they use discord or skype instead of the in-game VOIP. This doesn't happen in fully random QP.

3) A small group of pilots working strongly together is often the SINGLE deciding factor in quickplay for which side wins. In fully random solo QP, most of the time when teams win, it's 1-2 pilots on VOIP and the rest simply follow. Now magnify this winning effect multiple times with a small group of coordinating pilots. You might as well put 4 sharks in a pool of tuna. To equate random players starting to communicate with a pre-arranged group of friends, is seriously underestimating this multiplying force. It's like comparing a group of firefighters trying to herd civilians, with a team of commandos.

4) Sync dropping is a bad practice. I've once seen a twitch stream of a famous streamer where the sync drop ended up with 1 of them on the other side, and that one pilot ratted out on his own team early in the match, providing intel. It still happens tho (sync drop) and it's probably the alternative way to have a group of friends play the same game together.

If you want to group up with friends, go group queue. But IMHO groups in Quick Play is a FLAT NO.

[Haipyng]

Aloha, on 14 June 2018 - 08:22 AM, said:

Sync dropping is a loophole. It's allowed simply because there's no way PGI can prevent it. Twitch streamers do it all the time. The difference it makes is probably not much for a couple of regular players, but if two Tier 0 (that's what I call the comp guys) players drop in a QP match together, they can probably carry the team easily. Even a single Tier 0 player can carry a match sometimes (actually a lot of times).

So for two mans, basically not a lot of difference to what we have now in Quickplay, just unofficial and clunky?

[LordBraxton]

OP is spot on, I cant get anyone into MWO because to play with me they have to jump into tier 1 group madness

[Mister Glitchdragon]

a le Roi, on 14 June 2018 - 08:11 AM, said:

But what difference does it make to the match balance if I join a random game with my friend in a pre-made group or through sync dropping?

Lol to that. You and your friend try sync-dropping for a night, then come back and tell us how it went. I'm willing to bet that for every match you wind up on the same team, there will be one in which you wind up in the same match, but on opposite teams, and (depending on when you try) at least one match in which you don't sync and wind up in different matches all together. At a minimum, that's one out of three drops, which is a lot of your evening wasted just trying to club seals.

Is winning that important? If so, why don't you and your friend try to join one of those 12-mans that have you p*ssing your pants in group queue? Problem solved!

Finally, I'm pretty sure sync-dropping against the terms of use you signed when you made your account.

[Grus]

Frankly a group is a group... not solo .. plus you REALLY don't want even a small group in solo que.. if you get even 2 people that cordinated thier builds and have a decebt idea of wtf they are doing, with 10 rando commandos, vs 12 potatos... you're looking at a stomp.

[a le Roi]

arcana75, on 14 June 2018 - 08:26 AM, said:

If you want to group up with friends, go group queue. But IMHO groups in Quick Play is a FLAT NO.

Like you and Aloha said, you can't prevent it (through sync dropping). So might as well make it official, so that the match maker can at least take those groups into account and balance them between both teams.

[a le Roi]

Grus, on 14 June 2018 - 08:32 AM, said:

Frankly a group is a group... not solo .. plus you REALLY don't want even a small group in solo que.. if you get even 2 people that cordinated thier builds and have a decebt idea of wtf they are doing, with 10 rando commandos, vs 12 potatos... you're looking at a stomp.

Your argument is based on the assumption that team work only happens with pre-made groups and that random teams don't coordinate.

It's false on both accounts. (And if it were true, MWO would fail as a team-based game.)

Random teams can and do coordinate. And random strangers can and do coordinate in small groups even if the team as a whole doesn't. The end result is that you do see a lot of coordinated team play in "solo" games - coordination which easily balances out any small pre-made groups.

Notice that I am *not* arguing for 6- or 8-man teams being allowed into mixed games with solo players.

Mister Glitchdragon, on 14 June 2018 - 08:31 AM, said:

Lol to that. You and your friend try sync-dropping for a night, then come back and tell us how it went. I'm willing to bet that for every match you wind up on the same team, there will be one in which you wind up in the same match, but on opposite teams, and (depending on when you try) at least one match in which you don't sync and wind up in different matches all together. At a minimum, that's one out of three drops, which is a lot of your evening wasted just trying to club seals.

That time "wasted" is time we would still spend actually playing instead of sitting idly in a queue.

Group queue matches are 75% waiting between matches rather than actually playing. I don't know about you, but I don't find that particularly rewarding, win or lose. The group queue matches really aren't that much better when it comes to team play than solo queue matches, at least for us "potatoes".

[Tatula]

Haipyng, on 14 June 2018 - 08:29 AM, said:

So for two mans, basically not a lot of difference to what we have now in Quickplay, just unofficial and clunky?

For two casual/regular players, that's probably the case. Just to be clear, I'm not against having two-man groups in the QP queue. But for the reason I pointed out, PGI will most likely not allow it. I have a small group of RL friends I play with. We drop in the Group Queue even when it's only two of us playing. Those are the breaks and we're OK with it. But I can see the appeal for newer players to try to learn together by playing together without getting stomped on all the time.

[arcana75]

a le Roi, on 14 June 2018 - 08:34 AM, said:

Like you and Aloha said, you can't prevent it (through sync dropping). So might as well make it official, so that the match maker can at least take those groups into account and balance them between both teams.

No it's a different situation. For sync dropping to really work, you first need all your friends in the same tier or close to it, and even then you may not drop into the same game or same side. This random nature balances out sync drop abuse. As for it being against the terms of service, I cannot comment.

Making it "official" because there's a loophole, is like saying hey there's a hole in the fence, let's make it official and put a red carpet there.

Also, if you allow groups in QP, what's stopping 6 groups of 4 friends to be grouped up by the matchmaker and all placed into 1 match? Hey... that sounds suspiciously like GROUP PLAY.

If you want to play with friends, GROUP PLAY. If you want a safe space with friends, try Private Lobby. Or go play a proper co-op game.

Edited by arcana75, 14 June 2018 - 08:47 AM.

[Eisenhorne]

Anastasius Foht, on 14 June 2018 - 07:52 AM, said:

Groups care only about themselfs, i saw many multiplayer games where soloQ was allowed to play with small group, all they do -its only care for each other using another team as meat shields and not responding at ANY team calls like "Help" or "We need to push".

Most players calling for a push are bad at the game and don't know what they are doing, and as such are really only usable as meat shields. The brawler atlas that's going to charge across open terrain, dealing 200 damage before he gets put down, for example, is always yelling to "push" when it will never work. useful only to walk point and take the first bullet.

[a le Roi]

KHETTI, on 14 June 2018 - 08:20 AM, said:

Atleast be honest about it, you want eze mode so you can post humble brag threads of how leet you are at stomping headless chickens.

Not everyone shares your world view, friend. I couldn't care less about bragging with my skills on an online forum, whatever the game.

I just want to be able to actually play MWO with a friend or two without spending most of our time waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

Discouraging casual players from playing with their friends is a recipe for those players leaving and looking for something else to play. Not everyone has the time or the desire to join units.

[Besh]

https://mwomercs.com...r-small-groups/

That was opened 3 days ago . Now, its "only" about allowing 2Men Groups into SoloQ. But most of what has been said there is valid for this Thread, too .

Ever wondered how GroupQ came about to be ? Well, a long time ago, when the Game was 8v8, 4Men "premades" were allowed, and - there was no GroupQ . Did not go well for long . Hence, GroupQ. 'nuff said .

Eisenhorne, on 14 June 2018 - 08:44 AM, said:

Most players calling for a push are bad at the game and don't know what they are doing, and as such are really only usable as meat shields. The brawler atlas that's going to charge across open terrain, dealing 200 damage before he gets put down, for example, is always yelling to "push" when it will never work. useful only to walk point and take the first bullet.

That is very often the role of an Atlas, to act as a kind of "SiegeBreaker"...he charges ahead across unfavourable Terrain into a well established enemy position to do exactly that - draw concerted Fire onto himself, soak up as much damage as possible, so that his Teammates can hopefully focusfire and take down 3, 4 of the 'Mechs shooting at him . Ofc, even a lot of "T1" players do not really seem to understand that.

The amount of times where the rest of the Team simply stays cowering behind cover NOT using the momentary advantage that Atlas handles to them on a Silver Platter is crazy, and the worst part of it is being called "bad at the Game" or "Stupid" when you are the Asssault Pilot, saw the opening, sacrifice your 'Mech, and your hidey-pokey Team just does not have the guts - or hand eye coordination, after all, moving AND shooting simultaneously is hard... - and blows it .

Edited by Besh, 14 June 2018 - 08:54 AM.

[Chados]

Just no.

[Haipyng]

arcana75, on 14 June 2018 - 08:26 AM, said:

A group inside QuickPlay is not good for several reasons:

1) It breaks tonnage matchmaking, or messes it up. In random solo queue, the MM can make better choices to mix and match the 12v12. Consider what happens when this group of 2-4 friends decide to eg all field Assaults.

Broken worse than it is now with safeties? I've seen 6 Assaults drop on the same team. Under GQ tonnage rules currently a three man can drop with 2 Assaults and 1 Heavy at the most. Small population is hurting the game and the fast that there is no place for very small groups other than the GQ where they can run into large premades is part of the reason why we have a low population and can't have nice things.

arcana75, on 14 June 2018 - 08:26 AM, said:

2) Teamwork is OP and pre-arranged teamwork is even more OP. Consider 2-4 friends who decide to all field Assaults or all Lights, and not only that, field complementary loadouts eg 1 lurmboat, 1 narc, 1 pinpoint, 1 critboat. Then they use discord or skype instead of the in-game VOIP. This doesn't happen in fully random QP.

Sure is. That is why GQ so often sucks for very small groups to play in. Having a single 2 or 3 man group on each side is no where near as unbalanced as forcing multiple 2-3 man groups against 6+ group pre-mades. Often it is almost equivalent to dropping those large groups against Quick Play players.

arcana75, on 14 June 2018 - 08:26 AM, said:

3) A small group of pilots working strongly together is often the SINGLE deciding factor in quickplay for which side wins. In fully random solo QP, most of the time when teams win, it's 1-2 pilots on VOIP and the rest simply follow. Now magnify this winning effect multiple times with a small group of coordinating pilots. You might as well put 4 sharks in a pool of tuna. To equate random players starting to communicate with a pre-arranged group of friends, is seriously underestimating this multiplying force. It's like comparing a group of firefighters trying to herd civilians, with a team of commandos.

This happens at times already in QP, just from known players getting together and communicating. If your small groups are effective they will use game voip. If not then there is a good chance they will get toasted without backup.

arcana75, on 14 June 2018 - 08:26 AM, said:

4) Sync dropping is a bad practice. I've once seen a twitch stream of a famous streamer where the sync drop ended up with 1 of them on the other side, and that one pilot ratted out on his own team early in the match, providing intel. It still happens tho (sync drop) and it's probably the alternative way to have a group of friends play the same game together.

If you want to group up with friends, go group queue. But IMHO groups in Quick Play is a FLAT NO.

It's already happening, but as long as it is clunky and random it's fine to leave it as is? Too many things are like this already in MWO.