118 replies to this topic

[Davegt27]

well we can keep things the same ??

or we can ask/demand/suggest things be changed

its been my observation things in the (ask/demand/suggest) fall on deaf ears

it takes effort but I try to listen to anyone and not sit up on my high horse looking down on the scrubs/pugs/seals

for sure what is being done now ain't working

if you don't want to break up teams please do something for crying out loud

[Weeny Machine]

Monkey Lover, on 05 December 2022 - 05:43 PM, said:

Ya lets add the "ez mode" button please.

1. Yeah, being in a group full of premades seal clubbing pugs is hard mode and being in the pug is "ez mode".
2. You are aware that QP had no groups and it was merged because the premades first killed all pugs in FP, then the better premades killed the weaker ones until the queue was dead.

So much for making very dumb comments. Gratz

[Weeny Machine]

By Any Other Name, on 05 December 2022 - 11:38 PM, said:

There's also no cure for whatever causes you to think you deserve to demolish solo queue with premades.

Most like a very sorry real life is the cause for that craving. The cure would be that they get a better real life and don't need to get their self-esteem by seal-clubbing pugs in a niche game with a niche population. Oh man, that in itself is as pathetic as it gets.

And before someone shows his "righteous fury" let me point out that there are zero rewards in QP for doing it but the swelling of your epeen. At least in FP it was somewhat understandable because of the rewards and the map.

Davegt27, on 06 December 2022 - 04:49 AM, said:

its been my observation things in the (ask/demand/suggest) fall on deaf ears

it takes effort but I try to listen to anyone and not sit up on my high horse looking down on the scrubs/pugs/seals

You know, when there were still pugs in FP, they told them to "get gud" or go out of the queue but at the end, the irony is that they ended up in QP pug queue because their behavious killed off FP. Now it happens in QP.

I don't care about their snide comments because at the end they will cause even more people to leave. I just hope that they can grasp when that happens that they were responsible to it. From the comments, though, I doubt that

Edited by Weeny Machine, 06 December 2022 - 05:34 AM.

[pbiggz]

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 12:40 AM, said:

If there's an argument for the continuation of the combined queue at this point that can't be boiled down to "but I wanna" I'm not seeing it.

Its really quite simple.

This game has a small active population; a major chunk of which is represented by dudes who want to play with their friends. If you separate out group and solo queue you're essentially soft-banning a large chunk of the playerbase, who will go play something else in the absence of being able to play with their friends. Then you will be mad because the game is dead.

To elaborate:

If you strip the groups out of the solo queue, and, say, best case scenario, put them back in the group queue, you've created one queue (solo) that might be functional; your match times will be dramatically increased (just like they were before the consolidation and the population rebound), and you've created another queue that we know for a fact wont be functional; the group queue would still need solos to opt in, and you've shown clearly you wont. Who would? A group queue just guarantees all you will face are large amounts of groups, and while I dispute anyone who says facing up to a 4 man totally ruins the game, facing 6+? Yeah, thats a problem. We know that's exactly how a solo vs group queue environment would play out because as you concede, we've seen it before.

So again you are essentially demanding a soft ban for people who don't play the game the way you like. That's a very good way to rapidly tank the population of this game and it breeds a highly toxic us versus them atmosphere in the community with essentially no payoff. The people you think are ruining the game for you aren't actually ruining the game for you. If you got what you wanted, you'd be wailing about long matchmaker times, or you'd be wailing about how the matchmaker now has to ignore tiers just to form matches in the first place.

Edited by pbiggz, 06 December 2022 - 05:56 AM.

[RickySpanish]

Weeny Machine, on 06 December 2022 - 05:28 AM, said:

Most like a very sorry real life is the cause for that craving. The cure would be that they get a better real life and don't need to get their self-esteem by seal-clubbing pugs in a niche game with a niche population. Oh man, that in itself is as pathetic as it gets.

And before someone shows his "righteous fury" let me point out that there are zero rewards in QP for doing it but the swelling of your epeen. At least in FP it was somewhat understandable because of the rewards and the map.


You know, when there were still pugs in FP, they told them to "get gud" or go out of the queue but at the end, the irony is that they ended up in QP pug queue because their behavious killed off FP. Now it happens in QP.

I don't care about their snide comments because at the end they will cause even more people to leave. I just hope that they can grasp when that happens that they were responsible to it. From the comments, though, I doubt that

I think you might be hoping for a little bit too much self-awareness there mate

I don't mind the challenge all that much to be honest, but it does get irritating when the same tippy top tier players group for hours racking up endless win streaks. At some point you would think it'd get boring, but nope - on they go. Like I said earlier, Event Queue is the solution to this, no stat tracking, fun challenges to build around, no groups.

I will add, perhaps a little childishly, that it certainly was amusing watching these same folk get absolutely demolished in comp facing the likes of JGx. Or, you know, not seeing them in comp at all...

Edited by RickySpanish, 06 December 2022 - 06:49 AM.

[pbiggz]

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 06:56 AM, said:

For this to be true group droppers would have to be a majority or equal to solos and I have repeatedly heard the opposite is the case

No it wouldn't. Even pulling a quarter of the player base out would have serious implications, and this isn't a game of raw numbers; players arent evenly distributed in the tiers, nor are they evenly distributed in terms of raw activity. A solo player who logs in once a year has a smaller effect on the game than a group of 4 who play each week.

Edited by pbiggz, 06 December 2022 - 07:00 AM.

[TheCaptainJZ]

PGI should turn the event queue into group queue on a set weekly schedule, like Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays from 6 pm GMT to 2 am GMT (as an example). Actually, they should backport the event queue changes to quick play so they can change those settings on the fly too. The better experience is if they had engineers and programmers that could set all of this automatically so the game puts you in the group queue when it's active or merges the group and solo queues during low pop times according to the schedule, but that's beyond their resources I'm sure.

[pbiggz]

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 07:18 AM, said:

Are you asserting that group-only droppers make up a quarter of the playerbase?

You asserted that for groups to effect the population they'd have to make up half the playerbase. I disputed that assertion. Do not attempt to move the goalposts.

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 07:18 AM, said:

This honestly looks like an "us vs them" argument from word go except you're arguing from the other direction. There's a lot of "quit whining, you need us" with a tacit "more than we need you" in the form of conflating solo players with once a year droppers.

Again you are choosing to interpret my response in a way that is frankly dishonest. This thread was created because someone is mad they have to play against groups. You, after all these responses talking about how the people you dont like are going to pay, can't honestly come up here and say its the group players that are being divisive; I don't see any anti-solo threads here.

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 07:18 AM, said:

I don't think I have to point out how that might make people want to call your bluff by hitting a GTFOH button on your group, long queue times be damned and impact on match quality be damned.

You act like this is all conjecture. We watched this game die once already. We know how it died. We know why. You cannot honestly come here and say we don't know what splitting up the queues does to the population. That's simply a lie.

Edited by pbiggz, 06 December 2022 - 08:36 AM.

[Pika]

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 07:18 AM, said:

Are you asserting that group-only droppers make up a quarter of the playerbase?

This honestly looks like an "us vs them" argument from word go except you're arguing from the other direction. There's a lot of "quit whining, you need us" with a tacit "more than we need you" in the form of conflating solo players with once a year droppers.

I don't think I have to point out how that might make people want to call your bluff by hitting a GTFOH button on your group, long queue times be damned and impact on match quality be damned.

There is a really simple solution to this whole thing really: Make some friends. If that's not possible, join a unit.

Small groups in the queue is pretty much necessary for the population of the game right now. It's ALWAYS been a problem. When we pushed all groups into group queue, it was a PAIN to get people into the game. They'd get stomped by a premade 12 man all day if they just wanted to play with you.

The compromise is small groups. Something games like the "World of x" games and Warthunder have done for years and right now it's the best compromise.

If you're finding you're getting stomped a lot, the problem might be with you. Maybe take some friends into the queue with you.

[pbiggz]

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 10:02 AM, said:

"Can't beat them, join them" is rather unattractive when what I am joining is something I disagree with profoundly. This sounds like an invitation to take the easy and ethically questionable way out. I'd personally rather spend a year clawing through as a solo and at the end be good enough to beat you and your premade friends, and remind you I did it as a solo every time it happens. I gained minimal insight at best as some fifth wheel when I group dropped in the past. I don't want to be your flunky or tagalong and I harbor absolutely zero illusions that I would ever be viewed as anything but in that environment.

In other words you don't like people playing together and want them gone.

So you're just another "ban what killed me" troll.

[pbiggz]

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 10:11 AM, said:

You ARE playing together with other people in a PUG drop.

I dont play often but when I do, I tend to play with my friends. I have zero reason to come back if that is removed. I make no secret of that. Im a mid-tier 3 player, not some kind of vicious pug stomper, my WLR reflects this. If you honestly think that just by dropping with one or two buddies I have given myself some kind of colossal, unassailable advantage, then you must be catastrophically, tragically bad at this game.

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 10:11 AM, said:

Your ability to go from complaining about open anti group sentiment to displaying anti PUG sentiment (something that's like a constant drone on some venues) is amazing.

It is a matter of fact that this game essentially died, and it is at the very least extraordinarily likely that consolidating the queues was the one, necessary move that saved it from total, permanent death. Had they not done that I doubt the servers would still even be up.

That's not anti-pug sentiment; you can't hyper-fragment the queue in a game that requires matchmaking to play and still expect the game to be remotely playable. That's a statement of fact.

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 10:11 AM, said:

This is before we even get to how "disagreeing with me and my philosophy and outlook makes you a troll" reflects on you and your camp.

Im not spouting a philosophy im simply willing to acknowledge reality; if you fragment the playerbase in a game that already has a small playerbase it will kill the game.

You are the one here who has a manifesto against certain players, and you are levying that which you are guilty of onto your opponents.

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 10:11 AM, said:

I really see zero reason to not make this an us vs them thing at this point, because that was clearly always the case and the sneering contempt your camp will direct at others should have been proof enough.

The only person here who displays "sneering contempt" is you. For example:

By Any Other Name, on 05 December 2022 - 04:36 PM, said:

Excusing the skewing of teams. I'd expect nothing less from you. I have zero reason to.

By Any Other Name, on 05 December 2022 - 09:47 PM, said:

Rude surprises for one's enemies are even more enjoyable.

By Any Other Name, on 05 December 2022 - 10:01 PM, said:

Your smarm won't make you right, either. The schadenfreude is gonna be positively amazing when you get checked. Heady like cask strength rum without the hangover. Watching people I hate suffer and knowing they deserve it.

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 12:18 AM, said:

Don't be so hard on yourself. I'm sure someone thinks you're very nice.

It's just not me.

You have a clear, manifest desire to see certain people who play the game different from you harmed. You have clearly stated you will enjoy it when that harm comes. You've been called out on that behaviour multiple times now, and each time, you've simply accused your opponents of engaging in exactly the same behaviour.

You are the one making this thread combative. You've been making it combative since the beginning. Your attempts to externalize that are laughable.

Edited by pbiggz, 06 December 2022 - 10:39 AM.

[pbiggz]

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 11:21 AM, said:

This is an argument that precedes me and I picked my side because I saw a history of sneering contempt and derision from your side. If you're telling me to stop throwing back at group drop advocates the same disdain I saw thrown in the opposite direction, no. I'll not waste my time politely entreating people who want that to be a one-way street with them as the beneficiary.

This is a fantasy. You are conducting yourself like a sneering lunatic because of imagined slights.

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 11:21 AM, said:

I consider this to fall under irreconcilable differences and I categorically refuse to be party to the thing I sincerely believe causes genuine harm to the QP environment, and I would not consider the type of people who would advocate for such to be ones I would associate with closely enough to try and make friends with. I have seen as much evidence that the resurgence was due to the pandemic's knock on effects as could be attributed to the combined queue.

Factual explanations for why this is wrong have been shared. You continue to dismiss them out of hand. That's on you. There's no reason to restate what's already been explained to you. You are simply choosing not to accept reality.

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 11:21 AM, said:

I did not come here to make friends. I came to play a game. I don't consider the environment the type to find friends, and I resent the implication that not treating it like a social mixer where I can find people to help me kick around those dirty randoms makes me some kind of corrosive force. Moreover I see no point in forging any kind of personal bond with people I only know from a game that may or may not be here this time next year.

Sounds like a personal problem.

Edited by pbiggz, 06 December 2022 - 11:43 AM.

[ccrider]

There is no "solo queue". There is Event Queue, Faction Play and Quick Play. Thus, were all problems solved.


/thread

[Meatbags]

pbiggz, on 06 December 2022 - 10:38 AM, said:

You have a clear, manifest desire to see certain people who play the game different from you harmed. You have clearly stated you will enjoy it when that harm comes. You've been called out on that behaviour multiple times now, and each time, you've simply accused your opponents of engaging in exactly the same behaviour.

I know right? Dollars to donuts he spent some part of his day reciting incantations.

Weeny Machine, on 06 December 2022 - 05:28 AM, said:

Most like a very sorry real life is the cause for that craving. The cure would be that they get a better real life and don't need to get their self-esteem by seal-clubbing pugs in a niche game with a niche population. Oh man, that in itself is as pathetic as it gets.

"The reason you beat me at a video game is because your life is worse than mine and the game is all you have" .... that old chestnut, really? And the person who is secretly miserable is the one who likes playing with friends, not the one who wants everybody to play alone and for harm to come to anyone who disagrees? You're sure about that?

Funny you drag out that old cliché though, because my MWO unit is one of the most well-adjusted groups I've seen in a lifetime of gaming. We've got a lot of parents of young children, who work, who study, who have hobbies and passions and skills and who have a lot of laughs shooting at big stompy robots together.

Orion_, on 06 December 2022 - 01:24 AM, said:

Ignoring the higher salt content than the entire ocean here, what the heck are we calling a "pre-made"? Is this just complaining about people who use suggested builds/good builds instead of handicapping themselves or playing a badly set up mech? I agree lasers can be annoying but a 'bad build queue' is a bit weird to hope for if Im understanding the 'pre-made' thing right.

Weeny Machine seems to want specifically to avoid groups of high tier comp players running meta builds but seems to have drunk the Kool Aid of...

By Any Other Name who wants the total abolition of Group Queue, puppies and rainbows and responds to disagreement like a Scientologist responds to the question "Where is Shelly Miscavige?"

Anyways, this is a perennial thread and all you really need to know about the topic can be found here: https://twitter.com/...713082436149250

Also check out the dozens of threads prior to April 2020 here and on Reddit asking players why they left the game and see how many cite dead Group Queue.

Edited by Meatbags, 06 December 2022 - 01:04 PM.

[pbiggz]

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 01:09 PM, said:

And why did group queue die? Will they point the finger at anyone else or will they acknowledge that it was a shark tank, and they didn't get to be the sharks often enough?

You know full well you couldn't find matches in the group queue. Solo players obviously wouldn't opt into the queue, so awkwardly sized groups would simply never match.

As was linked in the response you quoted, Russ straight up stated separate queues were unsustainable. Why do you think your word is worth more than his? Especially after you've spent this entire thread frankly being a **** to everyone who disagrees with you.

Is it perhaps because you know you have the hate on for certain players and you're doing backflips to try to rationalize it?

Edited by pbiggz, 06 December 2022 - 01:14 PM.

[pbiggz]

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 01:25 PM, said:

There are certainly some I profoundly dislike regardless of their participation in the current queue dynamic.

Everyone in this thread needs to understand that you simply have an axe to grind then. You've admitted it.

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 01:25 PM, said:

That said, what conclusions I've drawn from what I have read are that group droppers are upset that solos did not want to play in a mode where the decks are stacked against them heavily, and so opted to force themselves upon solo players rather than demand a compromise from PGI that would avoid this clash in the first place.

This is literally fiction. It is not grounded in facts at all. The queues were consolidated so that you'd be able to find matches. Period. Not as an attempt to pander to people you dont personally like.

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 01:25 PM, said:

This indicates to me that it was never about "I just want to play in groups with friends", or at the very least that was NOT the main underlying motive. What anyone else buys into regarding that is on them as much as you say my perception is on me, but I have seen extremely little to dissuade me from the idea that ex-GQ people are just looking for a place to be the sharks. A self reporting survey of "why did you leave" is not likely to contain many responses where they bare their arse about wanting to shark about, it's going to be full of things that endeavor to sound much more sympathetic.

There is no anti-pug conspiracy.

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 01:25 PM, said:

PGI's history of changes doesn't even seem to hinge on popularity of an idea or lack thereof, so making the argument that this was a popular decision is not exactly in line with their past thought processes

Consolidating the queue wasn't about popularity it was about viability; the game would not work without it. Pure and simple. Had the queues not been merged, the servers would likely have gone down years ago already; it cannot be emphasized enough, this game was dead and it came back to life. That doesn't happen very often in video games. The queue merger was a key part of why the game came back, your refusal to accept that is your own problem.

[sosegado]

Weeny Machine, on 04 December 2022 - 06:48 AM, said:

So, please give us a button to play only matches without premades.

Maybe not a button to play without premades?

Maybe a button to play with friends?

Ok, so it goes like this:

Groups are disabled.

Instead, when you log on you can look at your friends list for people that are online and click a checkbox indicating that you want the matchmaker to increase the frequency with which you drop with the players you clicked?

I don't know maybe you can pick up to 4 the numbers can be worked out later.

The point is if you play in a premade it's because you either scheduled the group drops, or you found them online and grouped up. The result is the same...you're online at the same time and want to play together.

This is slightly different, you and your friends are going to play together, maybe not every drop, and maybe not even on the same teams! But you are still going to be playing.

Just brainstorming....but could something like this even work?

[SFC174]

pbiggz, on 06 December 2022 - 10:38 AM, said:

It is a matter of fact that this game essentially died, and it is at the very least extraordinarily likely that consolidating the queues was the one, necessary move that saved it from total, permanent death. Had they not done that I doubt the servers would still even be up.

Calling big steaming b.s. on this statement. Simply because we have numbers and dates.

Soup queue went into effect at the end of April 2020. Likely due to pandemic lock downs, population had grown from a low of 10k in Feb'20 to nearly 15k by the end of April'20. Population climbed to over 17k by the end of May. People trying out soup? Continued lockdown gains? Some combination of them? Don't know.

From that peak in May, population then dropped down to 14k by the end of September'20. That's a nearly 20% loss during the time one would expect the biggest impact from a major change like Soup implementation.

You may choose to suggest or posit other reasons for the drop in population. But forum opinions at the time of Soup implementation were highly polarized on either side of the issue, which suggests soup was going to have some effect on population. But to suggest that soup saving the game is "extraordinarily likely" is about as unsupported an assertion as you could make at this point.

What happened after Sept'20? PGI announced new hires and the restart of some level of game development, and the population took off. People were excited for the game to get better. Lots of promises were made. The gains continued unabated until May'21. Since then it's been a pretty steady decline with the exception of Dec'21 rewards spike and the Crusader drop. I'll leave it to the readers to debate what happened in Q2 of 2021 to reverse population gains and kill nearly half the population in the next 18 months.

And now MWO has about the same number of total players per month, and avg players per day (Jarl's and Steamcharts) as it did in April 2020. Whole lot of effort and grief to end up back where you started.

[Nightbird]

There's not going to be any match maker changes or opt outs. If you can put up with it, keeping playing, if you can't just quit,

[SFC174]

Nightbird, on 06 December 2022 - 02:09 PM, said:

There's not going to be any match maker changes or opt outs. If you can put up with it, keeping playing, if you can't just quit,

Sometimes the only way to win, is not to play.