If they were not a squad they should have faced each other 3v1 or 2v2 every time, plus the rest, which didn’t happen. MM does not allow pilots of the same corp to face each other in SQ, but it allows (i think forces actually) it in Arcade. For example here at WPK 2 squads that queue in the same exact queue will ALWAYS face each other in arcade (or squad + solo).
I’m gonna try and convince some guys to go full R8 or 9 with me in a 4 man squad with mk 1-2 weapons and mods and see what happens. If we get pure T3, there’s no way in hell i will ever upgrade to mk 3 and 4 again.
Not to mention we did a 3 man squad with R4 ships ONLY in our roster today and faced full T3 lineups. Some players even had R9 ships (5 fcking ranks difference - where you add the plethora of extra modules T3 offers and a crazy amount of extra module slots and implants). I can understand that that player can sck like hell at the game, but when it takes you and your group + random people 1-2 minutes to destroy that ship only due to sheer power and tank alone the rest of the enemy team has green light to all the beacons, bombs etc etc to win with 0 effort, just because there’s a guy with an over-ranked ship in his roster. If you don’t believe me i can provide screenshots from my main computer. And since i still have T2 ships to synergise, i will keep providing them non-stop.
And yes, borking squads up tiers does feel like punishment to me as well. Also the forced losses the MM provides if we win too much, so if we are good we are forcefully brought in a losing match in the end. In which case: what is the point of W/L ratio or ‘Longest win streak’?
I’ve properly tested this. I created a new account, flew only R1 ships, i was obviously the best player. Kill streaks of 20-25-30, capping almost all the beacons alone etc, what a pro can do in this given situation (and can actually use the DSR tanking idea to cheat the system). So i was naturally winning, because i had the skill. Then out of a sudden i got several MM-forced losses. Absolutely every enemy was skilled over the regular newbie, they were clearly well into the game for a longer time, not a single 1000 SR player with 0 battles, while i was put in only with those players or negative SR (below 1000) and very few games.
The current MM system does not reward skill. It is punished on purpose. And not only me, but the poor guys who were also put in my team, like: ‘here, have this guy on your team, now go die to an entire team above your level because he is limited to that ship’s abilities’. I would understand slightly if i had some extra capabilities on my ships, like a higher tier one to compensate for the 1vs12 factor (or mostly 1vs8 in T1), but if the skill is way above the max capacity of what the ship offers, there’s a hard limit of what one can actually do because of that limit and will NEVER compensate for the lacking parts in his team. And if i take a higher tier ship, i’m bumped up, and in the end there’s only 1 option left: R14 and 15. The end. Mid tiers serve no solid purpose.
Also, thinking to give the other team a chance in this manner is like holding their hands. Some of them hope to be better and better yet when they are about to face a hard opponent they are being given all the assets to not care about it. So the MM basically goes up and down from one extreme to the other instead of keeping an average line like it did in 0.8 and sort players by skills alone instead of winning (or losing) a little and then deciding to punish them. It basically forces the W/L ration to 1.00 for new players and the old players will never see their W/L ratio move anymore. Why the hell not keep that average line instead and reward those who actually worked for what they have and can do instead of thrashing with both sides? You want to win? Get good. Stop holding hands.
It’s really funny when you hear people talking about ‘elite corps who want things in their favor and stomp weaker players’ but they don’t want to get a challenge like that, aka it’s THEM who want to stomp weaker players instead of moving up. All the way worse when T4=T5 for example. It doesn’t matter if both teams could have 4 man squads in a tier because they are willingly separated and sent 1-2 tiers up.
Conclusion:
0.8.# matchmaking FTW with current playerbase. Period.
