16 replies to this topic

[RJF Volkodav]

Oversimplified ideas for making GQ more populated:
1) Add an ability for solo to join GQ
2) Remove GQ results from SoloQ leaderboards (add a separate board, provide seasonal prizes for GQ if possible)
3) Add information on groups in GQ and their players count so we could match for a drop to find games faster



Playing as organized group were always a great part of MWO. The greatest time of this game was a time of huge units playing FW/GP and their role was quite positive in forming playerbase as long as new players were invited to groups by their friends and took part in a coordinated drops which is (in my opinion) more interesting than solo QP. We played hundreds of matches in GroupQ before. Sadly now with less acive teams playing its getting hard to find a matches outside of primetime windows and even at prime time there are great possibility that you need to switch around number of players in your team to let current matchmaking system build a game.
As a leader of one of the comp/casual unit i can analyse what do people of my unit wanted to see ingame and i wanted to sum up some ideas based on my discussions with players and expirience about improving group play in MWO which potentially could have great improvement in interest for group play and unit participation. This could also play to build up back comp teams in future by allowing groups to participate in group combat outside of comp play season.

I understand that any changes would take efforts by PGI team, so i will try to do a "menu" of options so some of them would be easy to implement and others could be planned or reviewed. I ask PGI to at least take a look at the proposals and if they consider it good to implement them and help us to save this great gamemode. Anyways, thx for reading this and sorry for my bad english .

1. Encourage group play.
There are nothing today to encourage playing in groups, showing results and forming a units to take part in. QP and GP leaderbords are merged so, generally you cannot separate single player expirience from a group play expirience. We are also dont have any rewards for group play mode as it is in Faction Play or Solaris matches. To encourage group play i would suggest following features:

1.1) Remove GroupQ result from being added to QP leaderboards. Not every but lots of players care about their performance in QP leaderboard and that is limiting their participation in GroupQ matches as if you play with a good team you get less MS, Kills than in QP match because of spreading of the scores between players. Simple removal of GQ results from QP leadeboard would help to solve that. I believe its a simple option to implement.

1.2) Create a GroupQ leaderboard that shows both player performance like in existing one and allows to review unit performance and leaderboard. That would create another ladder to strive for results and ppl who are today trying to get better results for themselves would have an option of improving the result in GP for them and for a unit they play for. More trying to - more games online and potentially larger population ingame. Possibly, this feature could take some efforts to do, but having a system that accumulates match results already could help alot, so you just need to filter results in a current system (not sure about it but..).

1.3) Add a seasonal rewards for GroupQ according units results in MC/C-bills and add them to unit coffers in a current FW system. I would suggest for rewards to be proportional to number of matches unit players played as long as unit result in a leaderboard. This could potentially help to encourage ppl playing in GroupQ the same way as events encourage to play for rewards. And if c-bills transferring would be available in future FW update then it would be a great motivational factor for a new players who are usually stuck at mastering mechs because of XP\c-bills limitation.

2. Finding a matches and matchmaking
Current matchmaker system is limiting ability to find a GroupQ match. It is clear that lower population causes less team to get in game and the main limitation seems to be the fact that we need a groups that exactly match 12v12 system to arrange the match. There were couple of suggestions here before to improve current system, but changing it would possibly take more efforts thab possible. However i believe there are several less effort-taking actions that could be made to imrove the ability to form a team.

2.1) Add an ability to join solo to GroupQ matches. If we have a separated leaderboard and an ability to solo join GroupQ matches i'm sure there would be lots of comp players want to play "hardcore" solo vs groups. With that having solo players in groupQ could highly increase a possibility to form 12v12 match as long as solo player is a universal "unit" to fill in unequal player counts. To join the GroupQ solo player must create a team and join game without adding others in. That would leave an ability to join QP as long as joining GP solo.

2.2) Add some meta information on groups in GroupQ wating for a match and an "optimal" group to fill in 12v12 as fast as possible. We are having lots of people each day in comms today and we dont want to spend hours looking for a number of players to fill in the team for GroupQ. That leaves us with an only ability to play together and have fun together - sync dropping for QP matches. That is not allowing us to play togethere every time as long as breaking MM system and leading to unequal matches for QP sometimes. If we could have an information about groups waiting in GroupQ so we could easily understand how much players can get in GroupQ match fast that could surely help us to get more matches.

2.3) Allow other players quantities for GroupQ as an experiment. I.e. allow forming 11v11, 10v10, 9v9, 8v8 matches. This was proposed for QP some time ago, but if you dont want to have a risk trying this in QP that could be tested in GroupQ and i think it could be much more interesting to play different counts as long as extremely increasing possibility to form GroupQ matches. Matchscore calculations could be a problem here as long as rewards not to influence current system much, but i believe direct proportional increase in MS and rewards could work.



I wanted to add here suggestion on balance for GroupQ, but thinking of it i believe that should be a separate topic to discuss. I hope that we can have some of the proposals ingame as i would like group play to be an active part of MWO, being the best of all for me all this years.

Best regards,
Russian Clan Jade Falcon leader.
RJF Volkodav.

Edited by RJF Volkodav, 23 June 2019 - 11:49 PM.

[Cichol Balor]

to tired to talk about some of the issues I had so I will come back later but I like the general idea


I would like to add a separate type of LFG that may also help encourage group play. be able to tag your group as recruiting so anyone looking can see that it is a unit group looking to recruit new members into the unit. atm there is no real way for a player to find a unit outside of the forum

[RJF Volkodav]

I wonder if PGI even care about GQ...

Edited by RJF Volkodav, 09 June 2019 - 01:10 AM.

[Jackal Noble]

I like this idea, add a optional solo queue to group queue check box

[Khobai]

solo queue to group queue checkbox would be a good idea.

but still doesnt solve the issue of casual groups of new players getting stomped in group queue

[Elizander]

Khobai, on 09 June 2019 - 05:21 PM, said:

solo queue to group queue checkbox would be a good idea.

but still doesnt solve the issue of casual groups of new players getting stomped in group queue

At this point in time we have to break things down and separate issues. There won't ever be a perfect solution. Right now people who want to play together, casual or not, cannot play together consistently. The solo to group queue check box will solve that problem (hopefully). Let's just assume for now that allowing two to four friends to play together any time they want is a plus to the current state of the game and being stomped is a different issue.

It's better to safely assume that MWO won't be the perfect game for everyone, but let's fix it where we can.

[RJF Volkodav]

PGI, could you, please read the suggestions made in the first post and do at least simpliest things for GQ:
1) Add an ability for solo to join GQ
2) Remove GQ results from SoloQ leaderboards (add a separate board, provide seasonal prizes for GQ if possible)
3) Add information on groups in GQ and their players count so we could match for a drop to find games faster

Edited by RJF Volkodav, 14 June 2019 - 01:42 AM.

[Khobai]

Elizander, on 10 June 2019 - 03:03 PM, said:

At this point in time we have to break things down and separate issues. There won't ever be a perfect solution. Right now people who want to play together, casual or not, cannot play together consistently. The solo to group queue check box will solve that problem (hopefully).

It's better to safely assume that MWO won't be the perfect game for everyone, but let's fix it where we can.

the priority is fixing why new players quit. the only way the inevitable death of the game gets prolonged is by increasing the retention rate of new players so they play long enough to become paid players. The game also needs to find something to market to veteran players that they actually want to buy.

since the game has no advertising budget, the main way this game gets new players these days is by word of mouth. people want to play with their friends. but group queue isnt setup to be hospitable for casual groups of new players. that needs to be fixed.

Elizander, on 10 June 2019 - 03:03 PM, said:

Let's just assume for now that allowing two to four friends to play together any time they want is a plus to the current state of the game and being stomped is a different issue.

theyre not different issues though. because once those casual groups get stomped they no longer want to play the game. they move onto another F2P game like warframe where they can play with friends without getting stomped. its very much the same issue. group queue in its current form is detrimental to player retention.

Edited by Khobai, 14 June 2019 - 06:34 PM.

[RJF Volkodav]

Avoiding stomps means having good matchmaker system. Matchmaker system needs population OR number of games being matched. To have more matches in GQ the only way today is to create matches of smaller sizes i.e. 8v8, 10v10 etc. depending on people waiting in GQ. That would higly boost an ability for matchmaker to separate new players from old ones as you can create more matches with less skill difference.

[RJF Volkodav]

up. Still hope we can get some changes or at least a response

[50 50]

Can I add to this that it might be time to remove the additional servers and just go back to NA.
Having the option to select which servers to queue on effectively gives us 3 queues for solo and 3 for group.

Khobai, on 09 June 2019 - 05:21 PM, said:

solo queue to group queue checkbox would be a good idea.

but still doesnt solve the issue of casual groups of new players getting stomped in group queue

Simple.
Don't have the option selected by default.
Add a warning to activating it.


Edit:
You know, it could be taken a step further and we have a single launch button where you can opt in for Solaris, Quick Play Group and/or Faction play.
Could even have small groups allowed into the solo queue.
Just needs a rule in place that disables on of the options according to group size.
ie.
As a solo, can opt in to all options.
As a two player group, the Solaris 1v1 option is disabled.
For groups of 4 or more the solo queue is disabled.
Or something like that.

Edited by 50 50, 25 June 2019 - 01:59 AM.

[RJF Volkodav]

Up. Suggestions are in the first post.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

Fingers crossed. Solid ideas in here. I'd wish they could besomehow realized.

[50 50]

Just occurred to me that all we really need for this to work is to allow players to launch as a group of 1 to be able to effectively participate as a solo in group queue.
Surely that is just a rule behind the launch button.

I would debate whether it would actually help though.
The impression I get is that there are simply less than 24 players in the queue for at least 20 hours of the day.

So, would allowing solo players into the group queue actually have the desired result of more matches?
I doubt it.

I really think that for all modes we push for flexible team sizes and simply allow smaller teams if there are less players available.
Doesn't need to be a strict rule, simply try and make a match of 12v12, failing that 8v8, failing that 4v4.
Would it really matter if you have smaller teams if you are reliably getting regular drops?

[Aidan Crenshaw]

That is a pretty ingenious thought. That could be possible even with the lowest effort. The problem is, these solo-players would not want to sit in the group queue, waiting for a match, while the Solo Queue runs on. That would only split the soloplayers in two buckets. What we need would be that the solos (who choose to opt in GQ) could be picked by either matchmaker to build matches.

[Arrow11]

Great idea to change improve the group play!
I was playting with a friend in a group of two and we used to get pug games rather well in under 5 minutes. Something must have changhed recently. We can't get a game anymore waiting even 30 minutes!
This means efectively that we won't play MWO anymore...
A change in the player queue will be appreciated!

[50 50]

Aidan Crenshaw, on 17 September 2019 - 04:48 AM, said:

That is a pretty ingenious thought. That could be possible even with the lowest effort. The problem is, these solo-players would not want to sit in the group queue, waiting for a match, while the Solo Queue runs on. That would only split the soloplayers in two buckets. What we need would be that the solos (who choose to opt in GQ) could be picked by either matchmaker to build matches.

It can't be any more difficult than enabling the button. Same for when there are 11 people in the group and it gets disabled, need to remove that at the same time.

While I like the idea of being able to use a selection box to 'opt in' to group queue but still also sit in the solo queue I wonder if there is a massive issue trying to get the match maker to watch two separate queues and then move a player from one to the other.

It could work if the queues were merged however as it would then function similar to when we had the option to select the different missions as check boxes.... which raises a bit of an interesting question actually.
Are they actually separate queues at the moment or is there already a filter in place so that if you are in a group you can only get matched up with other groups?
I mean, if that was the case then all it would require is to show the option for players to select but have it as automatically selected and locked if you are in a group.
That would really change the discussion.
How do we find that out?