Please disable group balancing

Game Discussion PvP
#1

The idea is nice that each side needs to have the same size and number of groups but in reality it really kills teamplay/corps.

 

Got 3 mates and want to have fun? Well, too bad, because you need another group of four people on the other side as well.

Got a nice corp that plays together well and you would be really doing great together? Too bad, you will never be put in a match against some randoms.

 

So what´s the point of squads then, besides just being handicapped by waiting times to find enemies? While 2man squads are rather fast to be found, 3 or more can really ruin your evening.

Whats the reasoning behind that anyway? Balancing? Sure, there might be randoms that play well together but in 90% it´s just some people that went in a group, just because. Facing a well trained corp-squad will get you owned anyway, so you might just cut the fake “fair play” right away.

If i remember correctly it was introduced because randoms QQed about being stomped be corp-squads. Guess what? That´s what corp-squads are for, stomping randoms!

 

Get owned a lot? Get people to play with, join a corp, train, learn but please, don´t QQ about corps that have done that already. It´s part of the learning curve and we´ve all been there. The question is only if you want to break out of it or not!

 

So please, for the love of corps and squads, disable group-balancing. The game is limited enough with the Tiers, nothing more is needed imho.

#2

As much as many of us would love to see this happen, it simply won’t.

 

Balance is extremely important to the devs, and they maintain the view that squads are OP. (This is all based on how the squad matchmaker works currently and the lack of changes to it, despite the suggestions).

 

What the devs fail to realize is that squads aren’t OP. Teamspeak, Skype, or other verbal communication is OP (using the same reasoning the devs use about squads). Being in a squad doesn’t magically make you better like the devs seem to think it does. Communication makes you better. And you can communicate verbally without being in a squad.

 

Previous topics have been created suggesting changes to the squad matchmaking, but the devs don’t listen. If they do, they are taking their sweet old time implementing these changes that have been suggested for months now.

#3

I totally agree with you OP. My friends basically gave up on the game because if we try to play together it me means we have to queue for a stupid amount of time, you may get a game or just simply give up searching as we usually ended up doing.

 

The wait times seemed to be worse in T1 and are pretty horrendous in T2 apart from a certain time of day, and there was nothing indicating that we may have longer queue times when me and my friends squaded up. It was not until I dug around in the forums that I found out what was happened. This has a MASSIVE negative impact on the new player experience. I reckon that as soon as most new players find that they are waiting for an eternity for a pvp match, they simple just start playing another game, as my friends did.

 

And this game NEEDS new players. The game just feels stagnant to me, queue times are long, not many full matches, forums are very quiet. I certainly am not investing any more into this game monetary wise, as atm I feel it is a bad investment. Anyway, I digress.

#4

I know it´s been suggested over and over but i felt like it was time for a new thread once again and not digging up an old one.

Maybe some day they will listen.

 

After all, it´s the T3+ people that keep investing in the game, not the new ones - at least you would think it is this way.

 

For now, we just all join teamspeak, one player counts down and we hope to have the most of us on one side, without a squad. Sounds pretty dumb but it actually works and is better than having a squad. This cannot be the solution, right? Oo

#5

Guys you know which type of game are full of players? Dumb, addictive games. Sadly SC is going in that direction, the path is clear. Instead of balancing weapons and ships: they just push on no skill meta and in removing everything from the game that can actually give some advance to more “pro” (but let’s just say “non random”) players like squads. It’s sad to see a good game being dumbed down after every patch but that’s what we have. SO forget about removing squads limit or such things, that will simply not happen or when they do something vs randomers (like they did closing tiers to lower rank ship) they will do that in a faulty way.

#6

If i remember correctly it was introduced because randoms QQed about being stomped be corp-squads. Guess what? That´s what corp-squads are for, stomping randoms!

 

You can do that in Sector Conquest as much as you want.

 

I’d also guess the randoms would beg to differ.

#7

Guys you know which type of game are full of players? Dumb, addictive games. Sadly SC is going in that direction, the path is clear. Instead of balancing weapons and ships: they just push on no skill meta and in removing everything from the game that can actually give some advance to more “pro” (but let’s just say “non random”) players like squads. 

 

You can’t have it both ways, apparently. High population and superhard/skill-based gameplay - there are a few games like that. SC is not one of them - and I bet that to most casual players that bought/will buy some T4/5 ships SC feels pretty damn hard enough already.  

#8

We had that once and that was when the party opposing your idea had a louder voice. Main reason is, there are more solo players than squad players it seems. Coordinated squad play imbalanced the matches quite strongly. Now we have a similar problem with bad squads, which drag down the team.

#9

I honestly wouldn’t care if my team had to face a team with a squad in it, experience from other games has shown that they are not always that good and the team with no squads wins.

 

This ‘feature’ is a real bad turn off for people. I want to play with my mates, but none of us can be arsed with the silly wait times. The only times it is not bad is in a few hours of peak time in the week, then some of time of the weekend. Punishing players for wanting to team up with their mates is just dumb and bad business.

 

If people complained about having to face squads they just need to man up and learn from the experience, and try their damn hardest to overcome it, or you know what, play with some friends too :wink:

#10

Guys you can say whatever you want but the fact is that so far: dumbing down the game didn’t improved the population. 

#11

Apart from the addition of sentry drones for tacklers (which I personally consider is a necessary counter to interceptors, but let’s save that discussion for the countless other threads on the matter), I do not see how the game has been “dumbed down”.

As for answering the OP, all the devs need to implement is +1/-1 squad matchmaking, which has been suggested previously. I can’t remember if the suggestion was ever forwarded to them though, or if they already answered saying no. It might be worth it starting another thread with this suggestion.

#12

Yeah, how has the game been dumbed down? You mean as in having this squad balancing?

#13

I see no dumbing down either but something close to it. Making things more accessible is great for newbies, especially when the core players of a game are around for a long time already, making it hard to catch up. That´s fine and a good move.

Going so far as to making it really hard for the older ones to even find a match within a decent time however, is not such a good idea. You cannot survive based on only new players.

 

 

You can do that in Sector Conquest as much as you want.

 

And how often do we have than? Not to forget you need at least 3 R11 ships!

#14

man up and learn from the experience, and try their damn hardest to overcome it

 

You do realize that, at least for some, this is still just a game, which is supposed to be fun? And not a jail sentence you got for drunk driving. Also some people have actual jobs, they don’t need their games to be worse than work…

#15

I see no dumbing down either but something close to it. Making things more accessible is great for newbies, especially when the core players of a game are around for a long time already, making it hard to catch up. That´s fine and a good move.

Going so far as to making it really hard for the older ones to even find a match within a decent time however, is not such a good idea. You cannot survive based on only new players.

And how often do we have than? Not to forget you need at least 3 R11 ships!

 

Now, I would suppose the “older ones” you are talking about already have 3 R11 ships? There’s also sector sweep…  

 

And - at least for 3v3 squads - in T3 on RU servers I seem to see those pretty frequently. 2v2 in basically every match. I.e. if you don’t get 3v3 matches, it may simply be an issue with the low player base on certain regions (and, TBH, I am not convinced that the “any” region setting works as intended).

 

So, the solution that would make everyone happy (outside of +1/-1, which immediately might solve most issues) might be, for T3 and upwards, to remove all squad restrictions, but make this a player-elective. I.e. the non-squad players could choose to be willing to fight in matches with “unbalanced” squads, or not - but with potentially longer q-times?

 

Now we have mutliple risks here: have no balancing = randoms may quit. have balancing = squad-players may quit. have elective = split playerbase, smaller matches, longer queue = players from both parties may quit. Only the dev’s know what their spending statistics have to say about the revenue potential of the various player groups.

 

The problem with SC seems to be that is has so much ragequit potential…  - which probably contributes to the mediocre retention we seem to enjoy.

 

I also understand the dev’s reluctance to implement major changes in this area: players that left because of something like that probably won’t return.

 

On the +1/-1 i guess that might be restricted to larger matches (in T3), e.g. only with 8v8 or larger, so the impact wouldn’t be that great.

 

Also, you cannot survive based on only vet players. So many semi-deserted games out there that tried that.

#16

Yeah, how has the game been dumbed down? You mean as in having this squad balancing?

 

I hasn’t. “Dumbed Down” would imply a change in mechanism which nullifies, or at least reduces the impact of skill and experience (classic example: Ingress) on the outcome of matches. I don’t see how the squad balancing is connected to this.

 

As long as true “vet” players like Takamina (just to name one out of many many more: DOGE, Mowant, Vovandemort, Kurdi, NERW, NoskillzNZ, lodbol, djoylok, Aggressor, RicePirate, sash, yeahalex, etc. etc. etc… ) can cut down less skilled/experienced players like the grim reaper, skill/experience still rule this game. Some of the players treated by this game like the grass might say: to much.

#17

Kurdi :smiley:

Kurdi is a yolo pilot

#18

That may be so. He still kills me 3:1. Means his skill is 3:1 to mine. Takamina is probably more like 8:1 (4000 matches and I can’t actually remember killing him more than once. SenC - yes. Takamina - no)…

 

At least from my PoV the game is not “dumbed down” enough to let me play 1:1 with players that are definitely “better” than me. Same as guys which are even worse than me will (usually) have a hard time against me.

 

I also think that the game is still very much skill-based in that above-average players will show a pretty constant performance against lesser opponents, whereas the results of more average players, such as mine, do fluactuate much more. Some games I do well, others I suck, and those are distributed pretty evenly. Players such as DOGE and Mowant also may have “bad hair days”, but overall their performance is much more stable (or so it seems).

#19

You do realize that, at least for some, this is still just a game, which is supposed to be fun? And not a jail sentence you got for drunk driving. Also some people have actual jobs, they don’t need their games to be worse than work…

 

But that is just assuming that squads will constantly rofl stomp non squaded teams, which i doubt is the case. Heck there are games now that one team gets rofl stomped and there are no squads on either side. I would rather occasionaly get stomped on by a squad when playing solo than having to wait an eternity when playing with my mates. This is more important when you do have a job as you don’t want to be spending most of your time in game waiting…

 

I dunno, maybe the whole MM needs a rework, or maybe limit the number of players in squad to 2 or maybe 3 for them to be exempt from this silly MM mechanic.

 

But then again they need to get games more populated for squads to not have so much of a potential impact, far too many 3v3 matches for my liking…

#20

But that is just assuming that squads will constantly rofl stomp non squaded teams, which i doubt is the case. Heck there are games now that one team gets rofl stomped and there are no squads on either side. I would rather occasionaly get stomped on by a squad when playing solo than having to wait an eternity when playing with my mates. This is more important when you do have a job as you don’t want to be spending most of your time in game waiting…

I dunno, maybe the whole MM needs a rework, or maybe limit the number of players in squad to 2 or maybe 3 for them to be exempt from this silly MM mechanic.

But then again they need to get games more populated for squads to not have so much of a potential impact, far too many 3v3 matches for my liking…

 

I think this is a problem of region. Playing RU servers mostly (though lately suffering from increased ping) provides 8v8 to 12v12 for T3. 5v5 to 6v6 T5. Due to T4 “Special”, T4 also now seems stable with 5v5 to 6v6.

 

If you regularly play SQ, you’ll also see that squads in SC actually almost always crush randoms (T5, small games). For matches without squads, usually the side with more/better vets wins - the failure of the MM in many cases to set up evenly balanced games was always one of the major criticisms. Even without the SR being displayed nowadays, over time you know to distinguish the chaff from the wheat, and a look at the players usually provides a good hint about the probable outcome of a match. If MM puts a bunch of SRS, ESB and DNO on one side vs. a bunch of guys you’ve never seen before in ships 2 ranks below… Guess what’ll happen.

 

And I agree, the MM would IMHO need major rework for quite some time now.