127 replies to this topic

[Breaktime]

I recently joined a group of players, and we constantly finding ourselves with more than 4, and we'd really like an option to play together. At the moment we search at once, hoping to get placed in the same game, but I would really like it if an option was added to ensure it. We do custom games when there are enough of us, but often we are a group of 5-6.

So basically, we may search as a group of more than 4, but if we do, all it does is put us in the same game, with the matchmaker putting us on whatever teams it wanted. I imagine this could be abuseable, but still I would really like this. It's still fun to play against friends.

Please consider this.

[crazytimes]

Either play faction play or stick with the 4.

Many potato far underestimate the effect groups can have on outcomes. A very good group can sit at almost 100% winrate with just 4 people- one of the streamers did that live streaming on soup queue launch. A very potato group can consistently potato, but with 4 times the spud capacity.

4 is already a bit spicy - more will just ruin everyone else's fun in one direction or the other.

[kalashnikity]

crazytimes, on 26 December 2023 - 06:53 PM, said:

Either play faction play or stick with the 4.

Many potato far underestimate the effect groups can have on outcomes. A very good group can sit at almost 100% winrate with just 4 people- one of the streamers did that live streaming on soup queue launch. A very potato group can consistently potato, but with 4 times the spud capacity.

4 is already a bit spicy - more will just ruin everyone else's fun in one direction or the other.

As much as I love the old days with lots of groups, I know from experience who easy it is to get to T1 running with a 4 man with even T3 players who coordinate and stick together, very consistent wins.

Funny how much teamwork helps in a team game.

Weird, right?

[LordNothing]

custom games are still a thing if you and your group can find another group to play games with and schedule times and all of that.

[Ignatius Audene]

If timezone allows it FP. Otherwise private lobby old good old sync drop. U end up on opposing teams quite often, which always results in great hunts

[pbiggz]

The 4 player max group in quick play is a compromise. A very necessary one at that. It serves the most people, allows you to play with your friends, but without degrading the solo experience in a significant way. Groups any larger, especially tightly coordinated ones, do start to have a commanding, and therefore negative effect on play for solo players, who are an important constituency here that need to be protected.

[martian]

Breaktime, on 26 December 2023 - 04:06 PM, said:

I recently joined a group of players, and we constantly finding ourselves with more than 4, and we'd really like an option to play together. At the moment we search at once, hoping to get placed in the same game, but I would really like it if an option was added to ensure it. We do custom games when there are enough of us, but often we are a group of 5-6.

So basically, we may search as a group of more than 4, but if we do, all it does is put us in the same game, with the matchmaker putting us on whatever teams it wanted. I imagine this could be abuseable, but still I would really like this. It's still fun to play against friends.

Please consider this.

Play the Faction Play. It has been designed with the large premades (up to 12-man) in mind.

[Captain Caveman DE]

Ignatius Audene, on 26 December 2023 - 10:07 PM, said:

If timezone allows it FP. Otherwise private lobby old good old sync drop. U end up on opposing teams quite often, which always results in great hunts

that. or you just make 2 (or 3?) groups of people and syncdrop in QP.
know that you'll often end up playing AGAINST each other.

what's better than to shoot strangers?
that's right:
shooting up "friends" and getting "paid" for it

Edited by Captain Caveman DE, 27 December 2023 - 05:22 AM.

[Papaspud]

Because we need large groups to completely destroy single player queue. They already did it to group play, and do you wonder why nobody plays faction= large groups. Go play faction....oh nevermind.

[Besh]

Breaktime, on 26 December 2023 - 04:06 PM, said:

I recently joined a group of players, and we constantly finding ourselves with more than 4, and we'd really like an option to play together. At the moment we search at once, hoping to get placed in the same game, but I would really like it if an option was added to ensure it. We do custom games when there are enough of us, but often we are a group of 5-6.

So basically, we may search as a group of more than 4, but if we do, all it does is put us in the same game, with the matchmaker putting us on whatever teams it wanted. I imagine this could be abuseable, but still I would really like this. It's still fun to play against friends.

Please consider this.

Did you run into a Wolfpack of 4 trolllights farming kills yet ? Imagine those coordinated groups being able to bring 6 people . Or 8 .

Edited by Besh, 28 December 2023 - 06:58 AM.

[Besh]

the check engine light, on 27 December 2023 - 07:18 AM, said:

Imagine them on your team, and they SUCK at what they're doing besides putting your total drop weight in the crapper.

Excellent point .

Edited by Besh, 27 December 2023 - 07:25 AM.

[pbiggz]

the check engine light, on 27 December 2023 - 06:46 AM, said:

Give an inch and they ask for a mile.

Tempted to request abolishing groups for a month just to drive the point home, when you have no ability to group maybe you'll appreciate 4 mans more. Shut up and accept what you were given. It's already straining things at times. Compromise doesn't mean giving you everything you damn well want, and your audacious greed doesn't sit well with me.

nobody remotely serious thinks anything more than 4 mans is a good idea. despite the penchant of some on this forum to lie about groups, it is possible to have a nuanced take on this, which is simply that coordinated groups accounting for much more than a third of any one team start to have dramatic effects on outcomes. I do remember dropping into matches against 12-atlas premades in 2013. It was a weird time, and often a frustrating one. I also remember doing a 12 atlas defense on boreal vault and watching the other team turn and run from us. That was funny. Those interactions are better in faction play. That's where large teams should be, and if there are resources to be spent there, let them be spent there (not that I think FP will be getting an ounce of development).

As a corollary to that, I also think that if quickplay were every dropped down to 8v8 again (which it should be) a proportional reduction in group sizes would be necessary. Probably no more than 2 groups of 2 or 1 group of 3 per team. Perhaps thats a justification to not do 8v8, perhaps not.

[Breaktime]

Captain Caveman DE, on 27 December 2023 - 04:29 AM, said:

that. or you just make 2 (or 3?) groups of people and syncdrop in QP.
know that you'll often end up playing AGAINST each other.

what's better than to shoot strangers?
that's right:
shooting up "friends" and getting "paid" for it

We currently try to syncdrop because it's all there is, but it doesn't really work. It's how we spend most of our playtime when there are 5 of us and we rarely actually get put into the same game. Basically the what I'm asking for is some way to set up a syncdrop so we can actually do it.

All the comments a group of 4 is enough to guarantee a win, what I'm asking for shouldn't produce groups of 4 or more within the same team. We search as a group of 5-6, and the matchmaker splits up our group between teams. We probably get divided between both teams, and we don't even know who is in which groups, the matchmaker picks that.

[pbiggz]

Breaktime, on 29 December 2023 - 08:10 PM, said:

We currently try to syncdrop because it's all there is, but it doesn't really work. It's how we spend most of our playtime when there are 5 of us and we rarely actually get put into the same game. Basically the what I'm asking for is some way to set up a syncdrop so we can actually do it.

All the comments a group of 4 is enough to guarantee a win, what I'm asking for shouldn't produce groups of 4 or more within the same team. We search as a group of 5-6, and the matchmaker splits up our group between teams. We probably get divided between both teams, and we don't even know who is in which groups, the matchmaker picks that.

I think this has been explained a few times now, but ill summarize.

The 4 man group limit is a compromise to ensure you can still play with your friends without groups causing too wild a distortion to game results. People who say 4 mans always win are exaggerating, but saying that groups of any size wont cause negative effects is equally dishonest.

In short, you're asking to stack superior numbers in the queue, and you can't have that. If you've got 5 players, make a group of 3 and 2 and hope for the best. You probably wont be able to sync drop unless you're really close in PSR, so don't bother. If you want bigger group play, find a group that actually drops in faction play and line up with them to see if you can get into matches there. The queues there are usually empty unless you make arrangements. That's the best you can do right now.

[Captain Caveman DE]

Breaktime, on 29 December 2023 - 08:10 PM, said:

We currently try to syncdrop because it's all there is, but it doesn't really work. It's how we spend most of our playtime when there are 5 of us and we rarely actually get put into the same game. Basically the what I'm asking for is some way to set up a syncdrop so we can actually do it.

All the comments a group of 4 is enough to guarantee a win, what I'm asking for shouldn't produce groups of 4 or more within the same team. We search as a group of 5-6, and the matchmaker splits up our group between teams. We probably get divided between both teams, and we don't even know who is in which groups, the matchmaker picks that.

I see several ways you can play:
-do faction. your group is up to 12, and factiongames are awesome. prepare for long waiting times, however. also: vet.faction.groups might wipe the floor with you time and again, but hey: you drop as a big group..
I played this game FOR YEARS for the faction content, only. and it was great while it lasted. ymmv.

-open a private lobby. that way, you can exactly say who plays against who. takes a lot of people though, so the groups aren't too small. done that on quite a few occasions and it's fun. getting 2 large groups together is sometimes hard, though.

-single drop and time-sync: easiest to do, and you split up comms in teamspeak/discord once you see who is on what side.
fun games with little effort.

-2+ groups of up to 4players that you sync-drop - same as above, with less chaos in the teamspeak-phase.


to be honest: if you wanna do that often, my advice is to go either faction or single-drop-sync. and in single-drop make it CLEAR that seeking out and killing your mates is not "encouraged", but MANDATORY. it's way more fun that way and keeps those who blame you an "abuser of game-mechanics" in check.

you can't have BIG groups in QP, and there are reasons for it. imagine what your group of 6+ people can do in a 12v12;
it's no fun for the other side if your group is good at this game - and it's no fun for your side if your group is ~not~.
so the 4player-cap.

go and try faction: it's a great mode WHEN AND IF you get a match. and if that fails: see above

Edited by Captain Caveman DE, 30 December 2023 - 10:39 AM.

[LordNothing]

Ignatius Audene, on 26 December 2023 - 10:07 PM, said:

If timezone allows it FP. Otherwise private lobby old good old sync drop. U end up on opposing teams quite often, which always results in great hunts

i wouldn't mind a feature where you could drop with groups, even large ones, but the mm still levels the teams out. you at least end up in the same match if not the same team.

martian, on 26 December 2023 - 11:13 PM, said:

Play the Faction Play. It has been designed with the large premades (up to 12-man) in mind.

event required to get the wait times acceptable. that said where are the monthly fp events we were supposed to get?

[RickySpanish]

Eh? You can play in groups of up to 12... Just not in soup queue.

[KingCobra]

RickySpanish, on 31 December 2023 - 10:13 PM, said:

Eh? You can play in groups of up to 12... Just not in soup queue.

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We all know 12 man or even 8-man groups cannot play nice with casual and solo players it has been tried for years in MWO and the results are always the same as in exploiting the game to win and farming players for rewards LOLs or whatever.

Solo quick play should be restored to solo/casual players only and large groups should have their own 8v8 game play mode so they can do these things only to themselves in gameplay and yes MWO does have a viable 8v8 already coded in the game so it would be easy for PGI to implement the game mode back into the game before more players bail MWO for good.

[TheCaptainJZ]

As much as it would be nice if you could play with friends up to 12 on the same team, this game never had enough of a population to balance that out in a good way.

LordNothing, on 31 December 2023 - 08:50 PM, said:

i wouldn't mind a feature where you could drop with groups, even large ones, but the mm still levels the teams out. you at least end up in the same match if not the same team.

This could be exploited though. Presumably, they're on comms outside of the game, but there's no way to really deal with that if they're sync dropping instead either, other than they may not be in the same match.

[LordNothing]

TheCaptainJZ, on 04 January 2024 - 01:03 PM, said:

As much as it would be nice if you could play with friends up to 12 on the same team, this game never had enough of a population to balance that out in a good way.


This could be exploited though. Presumably, they're on comms outside of the game, but there's no way to really deal with that if they're sync dropping instead either, other than they may not be in the same match.

what's another unmitigated exploit? business as usual for this game. when used properly it would still allow players to play with all their friends. i think the legitimate gains outweigh the potential for abuse. then again that one is a hard one to moderate. its a crude equivalent to wall hack and could probibly be detected in the same way, then again i dont think the game is being actively moderated beyond the automated penalty and report system, and evidence submitted directly to support. they will deal with direct complaints and anyone who trips the automated systems a lot, but i dont think they go looking for it.

were mostly on the honor system here. if the game is perceived as being a hive of cheaters it will make people leave and potentially tank the game down into the red, thus ending it. so there is strong incentives for people who love the game to play honorably (the dominant portion of the population). the interlopers who do cheat aren't really good enough for it to matter (exceptions exist though).

Edited by LordNothing, 04 January 2024 - 01:20 PM.