Disclaimer See bold text for TL;DR

These comments are made because I think this game is fun, offers unique gameplay, and this I want it to succeed. I do not think playing as a group is bad, in fact it almost always provides the most satifying experiences achieveable within the game. Please comment (especially developers) with your opinions and thoughts on my following proposal and reasoning.

Problem

Elite groups pub stomping in solo que is a huge problem that many forum warriors here are no doubt tired of hearing and arguing about. I will not bother explaining why its a problem, we all know.

This does not change the fact that somthing must be done to curtail this issue.

Hoping that the playerbase expands to the point where groups only get matched against groups is a fallacy. The playerbase will not expand fast enough, because of this very issue (and others).

Reasoning

I have been a part of the community, and still am, of various fringe free online games over the years. See "Eve Dust514" "Mechwarrior Online" "Planetside 2" just to name a few.

A huge controbuting factor to why these games did or do not attract the audiance they deserve, is that a new player, the most valuble product to these games, get turned away by getting stomped.

New player starting safe zone sanboxes (see tier 1 and 2 in this game) are a good idea in principle, but people are not nearly as stupid as developers seem to imagine. Experiences in these safe ques fail to provide a credible hook to new players. They know that these experiences are not representitive of the true gameplay.

Solution

Until the playerbase expands to provide consistent matching of a group only que, limits must be put in place to increase player retention. This will lead to a larger playerbase, at which point restrictions could be lifted, or a group only que created.

I propose limiting group size in VETERAN and RECRUIT que to 2 players. No limit in legendary.

What this allows: Two friends to play the game together (a majority of most groups). Eliete groups to que legendary.

What this disallows: Large organized groups from clubing seals.

Potential Problems: Que syncing, but even then those groups of 2 could get matched against eachother. Really, from what I've seen in other games, a negligible issue.

In addition, members of the few "groups" in this game will be the very vocal minority in opposing a proposal such as this. I suggest taking a more objective approach to this issue, for the better of the game, and all of us players.

Thank you for reading if you made it this far.

That won't stop anything. The problem isn't really groups, in fact most of the players I know solo queue to help prevent unfair games. The issue is new players rushing to veteran day 2 and getting their collective rears handed to them. Regardless of whether or not the teams are balanced, there are too many players unwilling to understand the game before screaming nerf this nerf that and then probably quitting.

This is why I was partially against the module change in the tech tree system. The huge amount of exp and credits acted as somewhat of a block to newer players getting into legendary. But now that's not as much as a block due to the strong/not useless modules being immediately available again.

Essentially the issue, I think, isn't that groups pugstomp (though that can't help) rather that due to the population, players who've been in the game for less than a week are being paired with players who've been here for years. Reducing the squad limit won't change that. I also don't think the issue is so much that they lose, but how they lose. A player might be on the winning team, but if their performance was horrible due to having no idea what they were doing, the result could come out the same.

tl;dr don't think this'll stop much of anything.

LYB-FooJub#4039 posted (#post-209725) said: Essentially the issue, I think, isn't that groups pugstomp (though that can't help)

I'm not saying the main issue is that groups pubstomp. I'm saying that it, as in your words, "can't help". My proposal would greatly limit the scale of this specific issue, improving the game for the vast majority at the expense of the few.

And part of my point was limiting group size won't do jack to stop that.

But it will, because you then wont have a squffed match. Youwont have 3-4 level 50's on one team, while the MM dumps 2 level 50's on the other. Ive seen many a match where this has happened. now if the MM could throw the same amoutn of level 50's on the teams then your point would have validity to it. The fact that it can't/wont. means your point is in herintly wrong most of the time.

I've also seen people say in threads over 9 months Ive been playing that "if you want to win squad up" The MM is supposed to match squads with squads, but it dose not. or it will match any size squad against another squad regardless of the player level.

Squads stack the match. this is not perception, it's fact, while I understand people like to play with there firends/clan mates. Dose the enjoyment of 4 people override the enjoyment of 12 people? The simple truth is, there is not a big enough player base to support squad play with out effecting the balance.

The queston we need to ask our selfs is this. If a squad of 4 people in maxed ships can squiff a match that badly. should we remove squads for now, until we reach a point that:

1) The game population exspands enought to make it a nonissue.

2) Squads exsist only in a ranked/esports enviroment.

3)MM gets changed that squads can only find matches if the MM can find another squad of the same size +/- 1 players and level +/- 5 levels. (numbers just for show and not what I think should happen) If there are no other squads, then you can't get a match untill you dispand your squad or shrink the size.

Now I know none of the optons are good. But we have to look at whats best for the game as a whole. and not what we want to happen on a personal level.

I literlly stopped playing last month before the 1.11 patch because of you LYB crew, and today I stopped playing 2 hours early because of you LYB crew pubstomping every match where there was more than 2 of you in in both Veteran and Legendary. Before you all jumped in I was in very enjoyable and close matches where they ended within 20 points of each other. Once your crew jumped in it turned into every match being 10-100 every time. After rage quitting a few matches with you guys a few guys in the global chat said they did they exact same thing. Call it what you will but squads need to be limited in my personal opinion.

To be fair, legendary is hard core. You should expect squads. But at the same time you should know how to play by that point, and running off on your own will get you killed quick.

Actually what I noticed after the release of 1.11 was that a lot of the new T4s were queuing up for Legendary and having good matches. And that the maxed out T4s were sticking to Veteran to farm off all the newbie T3s that flooded it after the free credits drop. It was only once the squads showed up that Veteran and Legendary became pubstomping grounds.

Just so ya know, the majority of the time we solo queue to prevent this issue. So if stomping occurs it is more likely due to us as players just doing well as opposed to teaming up. If MM decides to put us all on the same team +- one...not much we can do.

So this goes out to all of people. And really what this boils down to is a few things. 1) You don't like losing to people better than you, thus those better people must stop playing(Flash) 2) You're too lazy to squad up so others can't squad up with their friends especially if they're better than you (Flash and Socore) 3) Even if it's one LYB you will still complain when you're on the losing end. 4) I wouldn't call it solo queue since there is only one queue so quit making it seem like we're exploiting. We aren't invincible, me and my group last night lost a couple times to a bunch of pubs(half of them were in T3s) so if we're pub stomping all the time how come we don't win ALL the time? 4) You complaing about us queueing in veteran(not that your reasoning holds any logic, you're just being a bunch of cry babies) and use the "Why don't you go play legendary(also flawed because the queues aren't always popping due to the different times of day) then you come in to legendary, get beat and whine? Like how old are you, suck it up, get better, beat us(like other people have and you certainly have the capacity to do) and get on with your life. If you spent half as much time complaining about us and other clans on the forums and reddit as yall did finding groups, coordinating, and playing, you wouldn't have any issues.