GSF Needs a separate Q for Premades/Groups

[DarkTergon]

And there we have it, the aces unite and try to put down someone who wants to improve the game, blaming it on being because I'm not good etc. The real issue is you're all afraid your queues won't pop, you'll have to actually play against each other, you won't have any more newbies to feed your kills. You only care abut quantity, not quality

[DakhathKilrathi]

And there we have it, the aces unite and try to put down someone who wants to improve the game, blaming it on being because I'm not good etc. The real issue is you're all afraid your queues won't pop, you'll have to actually play against each other, you won't have any more newbies to feed your kills. You only care abut quantity, not quality

 

We're not putting anyone down, though we are having a shared laugh about how threads around here go. I even made sure to include one that I've complained about: I did think slicing in its initial iteration was OP. It's in there because we had long threads about it for like two years.

 

Again: do you have any idea how much time and effort I put into helping people out? Everyone who is telling you that you have a bad idea has a very good understanding of how this game works, both in terms of mechanics and game sense. It comes with experience, and it's not like we're trying to keep any of this stuff a secret. I post a basic "here's how stuff works" in almost every game I'm in. Almost no one reads it, but I post it.

 

Once in a while, though, I have someone take me up on my offer to go into more detail. I'm always happy to. Ask for help and you'll get it.

 

I'm not "afraid" I'll have to play against aces. I have definitely intentionally queued against four man groups full of players at or above my skill level on purpose. Most of us have, either alone or in groups. There haven't really been enough people to do it for a while, but look up "super serious" here on the forums and see for yourself.

 

We can joke like this because we all know each other; the community really is that small.

 

As for being "afraid" queues won't pop? I wouldn't call it a fear but yeah it would actually be stupid if I got punished for being good at the game. I'm glad that Bioware seems to agree.

Edited July 13, 2021 by DakhathKilrathi

[DarkTergon]

As for being "afraid" queues won't pop? I wouldn't call it a fear but yeah it would actually be stupid if I got punished for being good at the game. I'm glad that Bioware seems to agree.

 

Because games like this are so fair

 

 

Wish I could say this was rare, but we know it's nots, or in DM it's the old 50 -10 .

And for the record I've been on both sides, and find it just as unfair when the team I'm on wins so easily, it shows how unbalanced the match making is, and why brackets might improve the game.

It's why new players don't get a chance to learn, the aces blow them out of the water before they even get to play.

Edited July 13, 2021 by DarkTergon

[DakhathKilrathi]

brackets might improve the game.

 

They would! If there were enough people to make them. There aren't, however (I suspect even if cross-server was implemented), so any sensible matchmaker would choose to make a game with what is available.

 

...which is what SWTOR's matchmaker already does, if you were curious. This isn't a ranked game mode, so it's perfectly sensible to just make a game when you have enough people to do it.

 

Edit:

 

Because games like this are so fair

 

[/Quote]

 

Well, no, they're really probably not, but without seeing the scoreboard it's hard to say what is actually happening here. By the look of it, almost half of your team is hanging out on C even though you never held enough to win. That's a big sign of Seasons/Conquest farmers, which is another problem entirely. Again, it's pretty hard to say without seeing the scoreboard.

Edited July 13, 2021 by DakhathKilrathi

[DarkTergon]

They would! If there were enough people to make them. There aren't, however (I suspect even if cross-server was implemented), so any sensible matchmaker would choose to make a game with what is available.

 

...which is what SWTOR's matchmaker already does, if you were curious. This isn't a ranked game mode, so it's perfectly sensible to just make a game when you have enough people to do it.

 

Edit:

 

 

 

Well, no, they're really probably not, but without seeing the scoreboard it's hard to say what is actually happening here. By the look of it, almost half of your team is hanging out on C even though you never held enough to win. That's a big sign of Seasons/Conquest farmers, which is another problem entirely. Again, it's pretty hard to say without seeing the scoreboard.

 

actually, the other team held c for most of the match, just happened that myself and another player managed to take c, while the other team was trying to take back A. For most of the match they held 3. And no, they weren't season farmers, they actually tried, they were just out matched

 

But your right status quo is fine, and that's what matters, the queue will continue to pop, and that's what matters.

Guess I'll go back to doing the minimum to get my CQ & GS points, to hell with trying to win.

Edited July 13, 2021 by DarkTergon

[Nee-Elder]

https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=8841

 

yeah you could do this right now. it won't give you any advantage at all, but if you want "joystick support" you can have it.

 

Thanks for the link, but a) i've already seen that thread before ...and b) that is about 'game controllers' , not JOYSTICKS. (as in, the Logitech Flight Stick series, for example)

 

For more information about why they're not going to give joysticks an inherent advantage (which is what you actually want)

 

 

First off , that's actually not what i want , but nice internet assumption lol

 

It's quite simple: i'm about average in most GSF matches (maybe above average on a good day) ....but....and this is the crucial part.... i absolutely despise using a *mouse* for space flying. It just doesn't feel right to me and, more importantly, it isn't FUN to me using the mouse to fly.

 

So, let me be clear please: All i want is to use the same 'flight stick' (joystick) that i had with Xwing:Alliance and SWG JTL and even now with SW:Squadrons . And frankly, i have zero guilt for such a basic desire. (that i would imagine most, if not all, pilots would prefer)

 

Secondly, how would it even be an "advantage" if every single other player had access to the exact same 'joystick support' ? It's not like i'm asking BioWare to send me some special computer with the only joystick port in existence.

[DakhathKilrathi]

actually, the other team held c for most of the match, just happened that myself and another player managed to take c, while the other team was trying to take back A. For most of the match they held 3. And no, they weren't season farmers, they actually tried, they were just out matched

 

But your right status quo is fine, and that's what matters, the queue will continue to pop, and that's what matters.

Guess I'll go back to doing the minimum to get my CQ & GS points, to hell with trying to win.

 

Yeah, with that attitude you definitely can't improve. If your argument is "good players shouldn't be allowed to get games in an unranked game mode" you're really just being spiteful. I suspected that was what you meant all along, since that's what people usually mean when they complain about premades, or spawn camping, or three capping, or any of a dozen other things that are code for "I don't like to lose".

 

Most people won't come right out and say it, though.

 

If you put even a quarter of the energy you've put into complaining on the forums into improving, you'd be shifting game momentum all on your own already.

Edited July 13, 2021 by DakhathKilrathi

[DakhathKilrathi]

Thanks for the link, but a) i've already seen that thread before ...and b) that is about 'game controllers' , not JOYSTICKS. (as in, the Logitech Flight Stick series, for example)

 

Good news! Xpadder supports joysticks! Go get that.

 

 

A bunch of other stuff that Verain's thread covered.[/Quote]

 

No go read the thread I linked. I didn't link it for no reason. Verain answered all of that.

Edited July 13, 2021 by DakhathKilrathi

[DarkTergon]

Yeah, with that attitude you definitely can't improve. If your argument is "good players shouldn't be allowed to get games in an unranked game mode" you're really just being spiteful. I suspected that was what you meant all along, since that's what people usually mean when they complain about premades, or spawn camping, or three capping, or any of a dozen other things that are code for "I don't like to lose".

 

Most people won't come right out and say it, though.

 

If you put even a quarter of the energy you've put into complaining on the forums into improving, you'd be shifting game momentum all on your own already.

 

No spiteful is people holding on to their elite position, winning match after match because they've maxed ship, they are ranked equivalent, and are happy shooting newbies, that's spiteful. Spiteful is wanting quantity over quality, it's 'i don't care, as long as I get my pop attitude'

 

You've obviously haven't bothered reading anything, just cherry picked, because as I've said from the start, not just here, but in every GSF thread, I give it my all, I try my best, this has never been about me, I don't give a carp about GSF, I just wanted a better environment for players who actually do, but no, you have to resort to this, have to resort to putting people down, your whole comments shows exactly what's wrong with the community 'Me, me, me' F**k the rest.

 

Again, my argument was for a ranked mode, so great players have a better challenge, and good player can learn to improve, and have something to aim for. But no, all you see is a threat to your status quo, so you lash out.

Also, no one said you HAVE to do ranked, no one HAS to do ranked PvP, but the aces go there, as it's more of a challenge, some do unranked (for various reasons), but they have a choice

 

As for improving, I have spent time improving, it's why I'm not longer down the bottom, but usually mid to 3/4 of the way up. I doubt I'll ever be top, but that's ok, I'd like to see everyone get a chance at that.

Edited July 13, 2021 by DarkTergon

[Nee-Elder]

Good news! Xpadder supports joysticks! Go get that.

 

hmm, i'll consider it ... but i still think BioWare should provide.

 

Thanks anyways though. /tip-hat

 

No go read the thread I linked. I didn't link it for no reason. Verain answered all of that.

 

I did read that thread (the OP & pages) . The OP is a very well written post and def. makes some legit logical points. (explanations)

 

However, i don't agree with the overall sentiment, since i'm one of those pesky "adapt or die" type people. In other words, how is it my fault that i have (or can afford) a particular flight-stick but some other people don't (or can't) ?

 

I practice what i preach btw, since in 10+ years of SWTOR , i've never had a *mic* for voice-comms. Yet still, even with that disadvantage , i've still managed to clear NiM Ops, MM fp's, PVP servers/instances, and even do Ranked PVP (gRanked too, before they took it away) and everything else in the game.

 

Furthermore, if it's just so "unfair" , then how come it works just fine in other flying games? Why is SWTOR so umm....what's the word i can use without getting into trouble.... lacking in controller diversity options?

 

And lastly, are there not a slew of other "unfair" advantages already inherent in the game anyway? (see: ISP's , computers, certain 'gaming mouse' with extra buttons, etc. etc. )

 

-------------

 

Just so i can add something more ON-TOPIC here ....

 

 

Again, my argument was for a ranked mode, so great players have a better challenge, and good player can learn to improve, and have something to aim for. .

 

I've been trying to convince BioWare to merge ground-pvp 'regs' into 'Ranked' , so that everyone is one giant queue of 'psuedo ranked' ground PVP (since the best players rise to the top regardless , and this way everyone would have a chance at Ranked rewards ) .

 

So, for GSF , i must say i'm not a huge fan unfortunately DarkTergon of your 'ranked mode' for GSF (especially since, aren't we hurting for players to queue GSF in off-peak hours already ? ) .

 

However, i did have an idea....admittedly radical: What if there was a 'mouse player' queue and a 'joystick player' queue ? (call them both "Ranked" GSF if you want )

Edited July 13, 2021 by Nee-Elder
adding on-topic part

[EHKodiak]

No spiteful is people holding on to their elite position, winning match after match because they've maxed ship, they are ranked equivalent, and are happy shooting newbies, that's spiteful. Spiteful is wanting quantity over quality, it's 'i don't care, as long as I get my pop attitude'

 

You've gone completely off topic to the thread and into personal attacks.

 

Needless to say, it doesn't take long to get a maxed ship, and even if you were in a maxed ship vs one of these guys in a basic ship you'd still lose because you aren't taking the opportunity to learn how GSF works, and are just complaining because you aren't very good at it yet.

 

Seriously, check out the resources available to you. They explain the things that the game doesn't, such as aiming with blasters or how missiles work. If you stick at it, you WILL get better and become one of these 10+ kills a match pilots.

[Ttoilleekul]

Well, that was an interesting read to wake up to. Been a while since a thread on here went from page one to page four overnight! Great news, I don't have to add anything! Gosh, I love you guys, thanks! To top it all myself and Verain in total agreement with each other. Who knew! Today is going to be a good day, I can feel it already :cool: Edited July 13, 2021 by Ttoilleekul

[Ttoilleekul]

How about instead we just remove Solo queue all together, make people actually play a team game with a team. Since everyone seems to want to delete an entire playstyle, I vote we delete yours instead.

 

I lied, there is something I wanted to add. It occurred to me that this is what we already have. I know you've been saying it for ages, GSF is a team game within a team game. But what we have, being more specific, or accurate, is a group queue, that "allows" solo players. The entire function aim and goal of an MMO is group play. You can't be mad at Bioware for that, that's what an MMO is by design. So the fact that they embrace solo queuers in all game modes within SWTOR is a kind thing. They could have it so that we are required to form groups prior to entering the queue. and we couldn't be mad at them, because it is a team game. I say that and fully admit that, as one of the biggest known solo queuers around right now.

 

I have historically made no secret of my general distaste for people that always group and never play solo, buuuuuuuuuuttt, I can't really be mad at them, can I? It may be my preference to play solo, but I can't be mad at people playing a game the way it was designed to be played. This was a realization I came to some time back, and that's when I decided to stop ranting and moaning about premades, and to step up my game to cope. And in the event I couldn't cope, to have people to call on to form a group. Great solo players were always the ones I most desired to emulate, the ones who would defy the odds and win anyway, in-spite of ever mounting odds against them. But we have to be clear here, a solo player is being "allowed" to queue in a "team" game and being given a team because he queued solo. We also have to make it clear that this is a risk / decision / that the solo player takes, in his full knowledge at his full responsibility. Or at least it should be. You are choosing to go solo in a game designed to be played in teams. You are choosing to jump into the fire, and say; "I can handle it."

 

And this leads me to Verain's point here:

Further, I can say with absolute certainly that many GSF games pop with no one of any note on either side, something that can be ascertained with /who and the new legacy-stalking crap that this game has, so anyone pretending that they CONSTANTLY RUN INTO ACES is either lying or literally only queuing when good players are on, which is quite the talent.

Yes this does happen. In addition to the reasons we know it happens as stated here by Verain, I can add that I know it happens because I have back-filled a good number of those matches, and turned it from a loss to a win or from a win to a stomp.

 

So let's just pull on these treads a little bit, and think about what would happen in the event that things like groups or Ace players were removed from the queue and placed into their own queue. This thread started with "remove groups." Okay so we do that, we remove groups. Now what? Well Sriia chimed in that a solo Ace carries a game too. So then it progressed to "remove solo Aces." Okay so we remove solo Aces. Now what? Well, shock horror, someone is still going to be leagues above everyone else. That decent vet who struggles against an Ace, is now going to start topping every game and carrying teams as often as an Ace does. And where does this lead us? Remove "decent-ish veterans." Okay so we remove decent-ish veterans. Now what? You got it, that missile spammer who relies heavily on missiles and couldn't hit water with lasers if he was standing on a boat, starts topping the board. Starts carrying games. Starts being hated.

 

The point is, it doesn't matter how much you remove talent or groups from the pool, people will always moan about whoever is at the top of the table. I've seen people scoring high numbers when no other Ace is in the match, who wouldn't do it vs an Ace. I've seen people say "watch out for so and so, they scored 24 kills last game." But this game, I am here, and "so and so" now does squat. Or the time someone said "guard XYZ, they will carry us." but little do they know Invis is in that match, and XYZ does nothing of note while Invis carries them. This is Verain's point. So the more you remove talent from the pool, lesser skilled players will take their place as the new top dog tier. And the reason we can count on this 100% being what would happen, is that people are so incredibly bad at this game, there will always be someone better. That is just the nature of PVP. I give you the people who spawn out and start firing Rapids at the first target they see even though that target is on the other side of the map. That is PVP. You cannot be mad at people for being good at PVP. My brain cannot even fathom how someone arrives at the conclusion; "people who can actually play a game shouldn't play it." And here is the real kicker, eventually you wind up at a point where the guy who campaigned for groups and Aces to be removed, now finds himself the king pin with people asking for him to be removed, and he's thinking, hold up, hang on, what did I do wrong?? And now he's telling people to learn to play the game. You will never solve it by "remove so and so from the game. " That is an endless cycle that only ends in PVE.

 

Wow, I actually had a lot to say didn't I? Sorry. But lastly, I want to ask a question about SW:Squadrons. SWS has dedicated Group and Solo queues. So Solo players don't get matched against groups, and vice versa. It also has, I would think, a better match maker? So those two things given, how are the games? Overall balanced? Or still a hot mess? Or somewhere in between? Genuine question, because if it didn't work in SWS, it wont work here. And as GSF has a smaller player base than SWS, separate queues would only kill pops.

Edited July 13, 2021 by Ttoilleekul

[DakhathKilrathi]

To add to/agree with Luc's most recent post: it's called "group finder" for a reason lol Edited July 13, 2021 by DakhathKilrathi

[DarkTergon]

You've gone completely off topic to the thread and into personal attacks.

 

Needless to say, it doesn't take long to get a maxed ship, and even if you were in a maxed ship vs one of these guys in a basic ship you'd still lose because you aren't taking the opportunity to learn how GSF works, and are just complaining because you aren't very good at it yet.

 

Seriously, check out the resources available to you. They explain the things that the game doesn't, such as aiming with blasters or how missiles work. If you stick at it, you WILL get better and become one of these 10+ kills a match pilots.

 

I haven't personally attacked anyone, what you quote wasn't directed at anyone, unlike the person who actually accused me of being spiteful, so please get your facts straight.

 

I'm up to 9 kills in matches (DM obviously) , not consistently, but it's good enough for me, unlike the few that seem to be clobbering together, this isn't about ME, it's about others, who don't persist because they get screwed earlier, and give up....I think I mentioned that a few times, yet it doesn't seem to register....

 

As for being off topic, it's not really off topic, the op was looking for a fairer way of playing gsf for all levels, the group suggestion was one, but it was shot down, another option would be to have brackets, but again people resist because it might affect their que times. It seems the more experienced players have no problem stomping all over the newer players, and have no interest in challenging themselves by moving in to ranked.

[DakhathKilrathi]

it's about others, who don't persist because they get screwed earlier, and give up....I think I mentioned that a few times, yet it doesn't seem to register...

 

people have been making this complaint for literally as long as GSF has existed: "oh no, the good players will kill the queue!"

 

Except they don't. Unless I'm on GSF Queue/GSF Queues. Then they sometimes do.

 

Bonus: see this thread for someone complaining about good players actively trying to queue against each other. It really doesn't matter what we do. If we're playing, someone's unhappy.

Edited July 13, 2021 by DakhathKilrathi

[DarkTergon]

 

 

I've been trying to convince BioWare to merge ground-pvp 'regs' into 'Ranked' , so that everyone is one giant queue of 'psuedo ranked' ground PVP (since the best players rise to the top regardless , and this way everyone would have a chance at Ranked rewards ) .

 

 

The problem with that is, you'll have what we have in GSF at the moment, you'll have the aces dominating everything, what do you think that will do to pvp. PvP can be toxic enough as it is, can you imagine how bad it would go.

I applaud the idea of trying to get ranked rewards for all pvp'ers, but merging them would cause as much chaos as merging the brackets would,

 

 

 

 

 

So, for GSF , i must say i'm not a huge fan unfortunately DarkTergon of your 'ranked mode' for GSF (especially since, aren't we hurting for players to queue GSF in off-peak hours already ? ) .

 

 

Except GSF pops more than any other queue, faster, quicker and more. I've queue pvp and gsf, 9/10 gsf pops first, even off peaks. There are enough people queuing, especially during peak times. I've queued several times and have had a friend queue at the same time, both matches popped, but we'd still end up in different matches that's how often it pops.

 

The ranked queue would be an option, for better players to challenge themselves, and hopefully give other players a chance to improve, as well as something to shoot for. How many PvP'rs have done regs, with an eye on hitting ranked? Sure some don't make it, or they get there, and realise it's harder than they think, but it's still a goal.

 

 

However, i did have an idea....admittedly radical: What if there was a 'mouse player' queue and a 'joystick player' queue ? (call them both "Ranked" GSF if you want )

 

No idea if that would make a difference. Does a joystick make this game that much easier? (I don't use one, so it's a genuine question)

At least you are pitching ideas, and trying to actually look at ways to improve it. The others, they've closed ranks, p*ssing on any ideas, putting down people who try to help, etc.

[DarkTergon]

people have been making this complaint for literally as long as GSF has existed: "oh no, the good players will kill the queue!"

 

Except they don't. Unless I'm on GSF Queue/GSF Queues. Then they sometimes do.

 

Bonus: see this thread for someone complaining about good players actively trying to queue against each other. It really doesn't matter what we do. If we're playing, someone's unhappy.

 

again, trying to twist what I have said, I never said the good players kill the queue, I said players give up, doesn't mean they don't queue, just means they don't try anymore, why would they stop, when you get GS & GSF points for doing nothing....

 

Again, trying to twist things, the person was trying to organise matches in the gsf setting, that would have affected other people. You don't have to do that anymore, because you can now organise your own outside of the gsf queue.

But it shows that they wanted the good players to que separately. Not to mention, that thread was 4 years ago...way to go.

Edited July 13, 2021 by DarkTergon

[DarkTergon]

And here is the real kicker' date=' eventually you wind up at a point where the guy who campaigned for groups and Aces to be removed, now finds himself the king pin with people asking for him to be removed, and he's thinking, hold up, hang on, what did I do wrong??[/u'][/b]

 

No, when they reach that point, they can then go up to the next level, but again, one point you all seem to miss, it's a choice, no one, or at least I NEVER said people should be forced, I said there should be a 'ranked' que, and I've even said a number of times, that people could choose to do it, or aim for it. But no, you are all too busy closing ranks, and trying to take what I say out of context, and twist it.

 

 

EDIT: Actually I noticed on my first post, it said remove those, when it was supposed to say 'Could'

Edited July 13, 2021 by DarkTergon

[DarkTergon]

Wait are you saying it's not really the premades they're mad about, but it's that they don't like losing!?

 

Sorry, didn't see this till now....

I thought the would have given it away, but I guess some humour doesn't translate well in text. I was being humorous.

[DakhathKilrathi]

No, when they reach that point, they can then go up to the next level, but again, one point you all seem to miss, it's a choice, no one, or at least I NEVER said people should be forced, I said there should be a 'ranked' que, and I've even said a number of times, that people could choose to do it, or aim for it. But no, you are all too busy closing ranks, and trying to take what I say out of context, and twist it.

 

 

EDIT: Actually I noticed on my first post, it said remove those, when it was supposed to say 'Could'

 

I'm not against the option of ranked GSF. It would pop even less than group ranked does and I don't see the point, but I'm not against having it. I don't know that you could justify wasting dev time on it, though, since it would - again - basically never pop.

 

That said, no, you definitely didn't present it as optional.

 

we responded to what was written lol

Edited July 13, 2021 by DakhathKilrathi

[Ttoilleekul]

I'm not against a ranked queue either, it would certainly spice up GSF. But what he is failing to accept is that if they did make ranked GSF, regs GSF would not change from what we know it to be right now.

[Ramalina]

The solo queue is a convenience.

 

GSF is a group game. The groups are called teams. You can group together as a team on your own if you really care about team composition.

 

If you don't care about team composition, the game designers are kind enough to provide an automated group making tool for you. It's not great at balancing teams, but by using it you've already implicitly agreed that you don't care who's on your team or on the other team.

 

If you don't want to fly against skilled players, if you genuinely care about it, get in chat, find a bunch of other people who can't handle the prospect of losing, and make two teams using the custom match interface. Voila, you have created your very own minnow pool GSF PvP safe space. This feature is already live, you can get in chat and start putting together your teams right now if you want to.

 

If you do not care enough about team composition to organize your own teams then stop whining about it. The aces in this thread do at least sometimes take team composition into their own hands. Whether it's super serious nights, theme nights, or tutorial workshops for new players. I have yet to hear of anyone who wants to hide from skilled players in the GSF queue going to the trouble of organizing a soft and cuddly playground for GSF newbs. The "mean cruel aces" HAVE DONE THIS. Yes, flying around for several hours getting shot at but not shooting back while giving new players step-by-step handholding on how to kill and how to survive in GSF. The whiners, to the best of my knowledge, have not.

 

The solo queue is all about being lazy when it comes to socializing and organizing. If you can't be bothered to do those, and can't be bothered to learn to play, your whining isn't going to impress the people who have.

 

Admittedly I'm being a hair hypocritical on this. My current primary "lobby the Devs" campaign for GSF is focused on the matchmaker. I'd like a rating system that takes into account better markers of player skill, and also that has some sort of check mechanism that prevents things like two aces being put on the same team even though we're both solo queued and apparently the only good players in the queue. Not finely tuned brackets, because there aren't enough players for that given how skill sensitive GSF is, but at least to avoid the obvious and avoidable worst case mistakes that the matchmaker currently sometimes makes. "Given the players sorted into these two teams, are the teams stupidly mismatched, and could they be reshuffled to make them less stupidly mismatched," are not questions that the current matchmaker tries to address. I think it would be an improvement if it did.

 

It would involve significant effort to do well though, and as I pointed out, if you're in solo queue, by implication you don't really care about team composition, no matter what you might then go on to post on the forums, so I can see how the Devs wouldn't consider it a super high priority. It'd be a moderately nice luxury though, and probably about the best option that approaches being workable given the nature of GSF's queue. I mean, technically custom matches are the ideal perfect solution giving you 100% control of who is on which team, but if you're being too lazy to do that, then it's about as good of an automated next best thing as seems workable.

 

Another point about the custom match feature and the small insular nature of GSF. Ranked effectively already exists. The good players for the most part already know who the good players on their home servers are, and a lot of them server hop enough for GSF to know who the good players on other servers are too. When we really want top notch games, we do go to the extra effort of organizing custom games, and in general relative skill levels are known well enough that the matchmaking is better than anything you ever see with the automated matchmaker. The reason Devs don't bother integrating it into the queue are probably: firstly they know that we know that it exists and how use it, secondly they know and we know that if we don't use GSF or GSF groupfinder Discord channels there will never be enough high skilled players on the same server at the same time for a ranked match to form. Automating it would not provide a benefit over doing manually, because you have to do the socializing and organization to get enough high skilled players into the queue at the same time in the first place.

[phalczen]

This experiment has already been tried. As I'm sure the veterans here recall, there was a bug with the ground pvp queues, about 4 years ago or so, and basically anyone grouped would not get a ground wz pop. This of course forced people to queue solo and often they would drop the match if they failed to end up on the same side as their friends, but sometimes they wouldn't. This was before the deserter debuff existed so there was no penalty to dropping out of a match. This inadvertent experiment lasted I think 2 weeks before it was fixed. What happened?

 

Well, the frequency of pops was stable to slightly increased, and the number of losses I experienced as a strictly solo-queuer was stable to slightly decreased. Skilled players were either out of the queue, or distributed more evenly through the two teams. But none of that helped me get any better (or worse). It just brought my win/loss ratio over my lifespan closer to 50/50.

 

I have watched as GSF populations increased via Galactic Command in 5.0 ... then through multiple rounds of conquest changes ... and finally as part of Galactic Seasons. Unbalanced matches do still occur (and I've been on the receiving end) but they are less frequent as the population has steadily increased. There is usually a wider gap of performance WITHIN a team than BETWEEN teams ... the so called "triple zeroes" at the bottom of the scoreboard. Conquest or Seasons "farming" may be a different issue than skill matchmaking, but it is still intimately tied to match balance. Those who enter the match simply to complete their daily PO or get their "5 matches with ____ ship class" conquest objective will continue to do so regardless of the presence of premades. In fact one could argue they hurt the experience of the "tryhard" more than the premade, since they probably reduce the likelihood of a win vs. an evenly matched non-premade. Fortunately, their presence increase the size of the queue pool, which in turns helps matchmaker make more even matches.

 

I have never been able to commit to one side or the other in this debate. I can see validity in both arguments. I don't think its fair to the members of a team to deprive them of pops or force them to split up. And practice and challenge are the only ways to build skill, you're not going to get better at chess if the computer is set to Easy Difficulty all the time. But, getting repeatedly decimated is generally not going to encourage people to continue to try. Demotivation is very real. At least, you have to see some benefit in your effort to know its worthwhile to keep trying. To be sure, getting conquest points, seasons points, tech fragments, renown, etc. is one benefit. But you also need game-mode specific feedback. For example, seeing that your accuracy is improving, or that you are getting more kills+assists than before. This data is available as a cumulative result, but you have to know how to find it, and ultimately record and yourself real time prospectively and then analyze it. It would be great if the game could provide you with a historical chart of your performance across a variety of metrics, but it doesn't. As of now, the only in game indication you get that your efforts are paying off is that you will get slightly more requisition based on the number of medals you earn, which you can then use to upgrade your ship. But its obviously a lot easier to master a ship than it is to become an "ace," and since that gap is very large, having a way to monitor your performance over time, in game, would be useful. In this way, like so many other things in life, you get out what you put in. You may say that you deal with enough spreadsheets at work and you would rather not need them for a video game, and that's fine, but you will only get better if you know where you are lacking in skill.

 

The problem is that forcing premades out of queue may result in more balanced matches, reducing the contribution of demotivation, but it won't raise the quality of the matches themselves, and it won't raise the skills of the players. Therefore, I don't know what the best answer is. So, I believe its superior to err on the side of not breaking up groups and not denying them pops. I may get slaughtered this match but more than likely next match will be much better. Or tomorrow. At least that has been my experience on SS since Seasons started.

Edited July 13, 2021 by phalczen

[Ttoilleekul]

Well Said Ramalina.

 

Actually at this point I've decided its downright rude and ungrateful to be saying the things Dark Tergon is saying. Drakolich has done loads to help GSF players. Coaching, analyses videos, Q&A sessions, instructional videos. Despon made the legendary and still very relevant GSF School. Sriia made the GSF discord, a guide and a compilation of other guides. Numerous people have made guides. Me the newest contributor to this side of things; coaching and analysis videos. Stradin organised the training sessions for multiple newbies at once. Then there are countless seasoned players who help people privately without any public knowledge, or just answer newbies on discord and here. I am certain you guys can name other notable contributors to providing assistance to the masses. Quite honestly, the evil Aces have gone above and beyond the call of duty in trying to help people in GSF, the thanks we get for it by Dark Tergon, is get out of the player pool thanks. Downright rude and inconsiderate.

Edited July 13, 2021 by Ttoilleekul