Give Custom Battles the option to be a regular PVP battle area.
If in the event that this replaces the current queue system, overall the playerbase will be much more active with eachother.
Yes, this has the possibility of being abused, however, the matchmaker part of the custom battle will make teams, aside from squads and wings, completely random.
With the exception that Corporation members of the same corporation will not be placed against each-other except in non-reward custom battles with the ‘choose where this person goes’ feature.
It would be a ban-able offense to choose who wins and who loses on purpose within custom battles
If players try their best and try to win but lose consistently, than they can do that, but if it’s on purpose, than no.
Pilots have the freedom to fight the battles they choose. to fight the opponents they choose. If they deem an opponent or group too hard to fight, they can look into another room or create their own.
After each game, the team will ‘shuffle’ its random players so the team itself will change consistently with a group of randoms with no corpmates, squads or wings. improving the odds that pilots will continously strive to win and further decreasing the temptation of losing on purpose so the other side can get some rewards.
A squad with a corpmate in the enemy squad will not be able to join the gameroom of the same corporation.
A corporation must use a wing or a squad to be together or be just in the same room, they may never be on the opposite side. This will also improve the odds that this will never be abused in any way.
Pilots will always have the option of not challenging such rooms. Those of us who enjoy this game and a challenge, most definitely would, however. This will make way for corp vs corp battles. pleasantly and efficiently.
Squads and wings will be able to easily find games this way and the enjoyment will go up immensely for pilots in general.
of course, the vs AI pvp mode will remain queue based.
Settings in the game that can be changed while keeping the rewards system should have some optional items like whether or not there is friendly fire, which ranks are available (same tier, or 1 tier difference),
whether or not your modules self harm you, etc. just some basic stuff alongside which server is being played on, and so on. these settings will be public within the lobby and within the room itself.
I’d suggest to test this system for about 3 months while removing the queue system for the duration, won’t hurt anything, and at the end of it get all of the proper feed back that wasn’t gained from the last venture when both the queue and custom battles were available with rewards. Also, make more realistic game-modes please. they’re my favorite.
The Room owner will be able to make adjustments to the room and the room’s description while still inside the room without needing to delete the room and create another one, which will save so much time,
The room owner will not be able to simply change a setting and start the room game for 1 minute after the setting has been changed to reduce the odds of this being abused in any way.
This system, though with minor flaws, will help to balance the human element of this game, and will give players generally less to complain about and more freedom to fight and improve and come to love this game and buy. We all want this.
I will say that I would like 1 vs 1 to be able to have rewards, but it makes sense to make it a minimum of 3 players to have a game with rewards unlocked.
Add an “I’m ready” mechanic so that when the room master starts the game, no one’s away from the computer.