Add a time limit or battle limit to squads?

Allow me to complain for a moment or two.

 

I have just come from being swept by the same squad of four 5X in a row.

 

It got old.

 

I won’t say who they were. That point is moot. I DO NOT think they are bad guys for teaming up and stomping the hell out of T3 arcade matches.

 

To me, they are a product of a broken system.

 

If I were online, and my buddies were online, and we were stronger and more experienced than most currently playing the game, I would team up with them in a heartbeat so I would not risk losing.

 

But I am not a part of the club, and the player base is so small that I am consistently matched up against this elite squad of four. So I lose and I lose. Every time I capture a beacon, (if I can even get close) I die within seconds. When I went up against them in a Combat Reconnaisance scenario, they just plowed right through us and straight-up slew the commander like he was a fly trapped in a small room. It felt like playing on a high-school football team against seasoned NFL pros. It was a bad feel.

 

So I ask this question:

 

Should overpowered squads who achieve a win streak (let’s call it 5) be forced to break up, or at least be split up to play on opposing sides?

I don’t see a way to do that in a sensible, non-aggravating way… That would feel rather arbitrary and frustrating.

On another hand, unless I’m missing something, there’s no reason you’d be systematically teamed against that squad five times in a row… Even if there’s too few players in the MM odd balancing algorythms, you should have been teamed on their side randomly. So you’ve just had bad luck. Although, by the sound of it, being matched at their side wouldn’t have been especially fun either…

Everyone goes through the learning pains of T3, I did it also when i first came to t3 there were these magical unicorns that just stomped on your face and no matter what you do you could never kill them.

 

-----Three things that are very important in T3------

 

1.Don’t go after a target unless its getting focus.

 

2.Don’t chase someone vs going to and getting the objective.

 

3.If you see that four people are already going interceptor suck it up and play a different role because four is too many anyway. EMP and maybe captain mode is exception. 

 

These three things will greatly increase your ability to win matches.

I agree with above message. I would shorten the above just to this higher level guidance:

 

  1. You cannot anymore do same stuff so freely --and get away with it untouched-- what you were able to do in T2. There are lot of new things you can do though.

 

Sooner you acknowledge it, sooner you get back to having same fun you had in T2…

I don’t think what you suggest is workable. If they’re allowed to they’ll just make the squad again, and all you’ve done is cause them minor frustration, and if you bar them from creating the same squad again then you’re basically saying you can’t play with your friends unless you make sure you throw some games, which is really dumb.

I agree, there is no viable solution to balance this other than upping matchmaking tiers which is already done currently…

I understand where IRONIZE is coming from - it’s not a unique experience to T3 either - I know I’ve heard complaints of this in T2, also.

 

Take into account that if you’re queuing for a match *right after* the match you just got out of, you’re most likely to run into the same squad again since most will just queue immediately unless they’re staggering queues /w their corp mates. If you, yourself are in a squad OR have decent rating, that greatly decreases your chance of being on the same side as the ‘good squad’ since their ratings will typically attract the lowest rated pilots currently in Q…or it’s just super random :slight_smile:

 

Add members of the squad to your watch list. See if they’re queued (likely will be) and then wait until they’re in battle and then queue. Can be rough in T3 with low pop, but there’s rarely only a single T3 match.

 

Also take into account that if you’re queued and they’re not, a full squad getting into a queue can sometimes start a match quickly by pushing it above the threshold to start a match so you could get queued ‘on’, but this gives you a way to avoid playing against certain squads at the cost of waiting longer for Q.

It does kind of suck when that happen, but like they mentioned t2 is just chaos, to many people have no idea what they are doing and they get a rude awaking in t3. I can’t count how many times in t2 my squad had to bark orders, that are so simple, like a is almost timed out go to b now. Or b is a death trap head to c. Instead every one wants to run an int, and smack a frigate in the phase with a plasma arc. The worst part is in t2 you can actually learn, you can see as people are raging how the team is newbs only 2 guys brought an engy, and there is maybe 3 frigates on the feild roaming with out support, meanwhile on red team there is 2 engys with guard protection, because they know first hand how great engy hugs are. And only one sniper not 4 one guy shooting at frigates with no engy support, as the rest fight at the objectives.

 

Now bump these guys up into t3, they learned nothing in t2, but played enough to advance. They have stock ships, are still running solo. Now add in the guys who dot the landscape with good modules they spent lots of time farming, the guys in t2 yelling things that should have been common knowledge, these guys start off with greens or better from all the hard earned wins in t2 that dropped t3 mods. Groups these guys up, and double their equipment choices, and tactic options, suddenly they are finding new better ways to work their group, while the solo guys are still trying to build a rambo build, not wanting to run their support ships because of various legit reasons like no protection. What you get is a 4 man group who grinded and raged twice as hard as the guys yelling stupid newb team as they use a jump gate to run into a rock, while they dogfight in the open. These guys paid their dues, they worked hard, built friendship, and learned who likes what, and to trust that if some one asks a squad mate to let them swap from engy to int, some one else will snag an engy next spawn, and keep the squad going.

 

Right now I am in the t2s paying my dues, watching my squad leader who has done this longer then me yell at the team to get them to work, pushing the squad into the front lines almost when one is captain simply to keep half the team from camping with are 2 dedicated guards to kill one lone int… I barely bought my first rank 5 ship, and still got rank 4s to buy so I can diversify my line up. While I am swapping factions, and mixing up the ships, there are others saying they can’t run engy because Jericho doesn’t have one; meanwhile I got a dagger ae, and a Neuron Zealot with a fed raptor mkII in my hangers, and grinding empire rank so I can get the hydra unlocked for future purchase. It will take me weeks to fill out my t2 the way I want, and unlock the blue modules, meanwhile in that time others will drive one faction up to t3, lack tons of good module options, and diversity, then find it hell, as my corp mates talk about how much more they earn in t3, but they go down to help the new guys grind up to them.

 

Anyways punishing those who work their buts off and grind twice as hard as the solo players feels a bit dirty. All because they moved more slowly through tiers, and had a lot more practice with support roles, and teamwork then the people who simply did what worked for them and repeated it till they got to the next rank. I can’t imagine any game that has multiplayer making out that well with a punish system, the crazy guys who group up, and grind their buts off for the different faction ships every tier to optimize the group are the first ones to dish out money for increased exp, and credit gain, the first to not just buy one but multiple gold ships to help them afford the expensive tactic.

pitr_watermelon_icon_1-31px.png Zalzany

Uhh, ok. Completely off-topic (but since the OP was silly anyway let’s just roll with it): You make some fairly good points about effort paying off in T3, but I’m not sure why you equate flying in a squad with being hard working and flying solo with being lazy. There are many solo players who put the effort in and I’m sure there are squads full of lazy morons flying around.

Why should success be punished?

In my opinion, Squadding Up is the most important lesson to learn out of this. People should not be discouraged to squad, they should be squadding “per default”

 

I dont mind getting pwnd over and over again by the same team. Usually thats the point where you really learn. You can always chose another gametype or front to fight on, even move down a tier… Also, the more defensive T2 captain battles are very different in T3, but thats just a sidenote.

 

There is a famous SC2 map, called starbattle, which is kinda a moba - and there were two reactions to “pubstompers”: in europe, people complain and call you “Ace” for having a team, and ask you why you dont go in pre-made battles. In the states, you hardly meet people solo. The game had a great success for years, and at the moment seems to lose player numbers first time that drastically, especially in europe. While, in the states, the game is still join - fight. Why? Because it matters how you think about a game, what happens to the people around you.

 

Squad up.

Add members of the squad to your watch list. See if they’re queued (likely will be) and then wait until they’re in battle and then queue. Can be rough in T3 with low pop, but there’s rarely only a single T3 match.

 

Also take into account that if you’re queued and they’re not, a full squad getting into a queue can sometimes start a match quickly by pushing it above the threshold to start a match so you could get queued ‘on’, but this gives you a way to avoid playing against certain squads at the cost of waiting longer for Q.

 

Thanks for the tip. I’ll be using that in the future.

 

When I originally posted, I was expecting to receive deridations instead of mature discussion. Kudos to all who replied to this thread.

 

Also;

 

Why should success be punished?

In my opinion, Squadding Up is the most important lesson to learn out of this. People should not be discouraged to squad, they should be squadding “per default”

 

I dont mind getting pwnd over and over again by the same team. Usually thats the point where you really learn. You can always chose another gametype or front to fight on, even move down a tier(…)

 

Squad up.

 

I encountered the elite squad at a time when the active player base was low (~450). I would hesitate to squad up because of what ArycSC said about my chances of being on their side of the battle decreasing if I was in a squad. After being ripped apart in mere seconds in my Prometheus (Command - Fighter decked out w/ military grade Nanocomposite Coating, mil grade Multiphase Shield Adapter, and mil grade Shield booster) I realised that I wasn’t losing so much because I suck, but because the other squad had become over-powered in comparison to anything the matchmaking system (within it’s bounds) could throw at them. I assumed that these guys were the biggest baddest dudes on the block, so signing up with another gang would only lead to certain annihilation.

 

After reading all your comments, and some contemplation, I can determine that my original suggestion was flawed.

 

***EDIT***

 

I have since learned the error of my ways. Finally, I can conclude that Teamwork is what made the squad so overpowered. The power of communication is much stronger than I had assumed. That is all. Teamwork and Communication. They are beautiful things when properly implemented.

The one thing I would personally suggest is upping the matchmaking value based on squad size. Perhaps similar to current upping based on success ±2 they could add another factor based on squad size. That way squads would go into higher matchmaking queues then solo players queuing for the same matches.