GSF premade guild on SS and SF (same guild)

[Darkestmonty]

Long term this is going to do more harm to the population of GSF than help.

I went 5 games with and against this premade guild and every time it was basically a bunch of new players that had very little clue what was going on against most of the veteran GSF players.

It was not fun, the pug of new players had no chance at winning and often it was a point discrepancy was so large the pug team had less than 5 kills and the premade had 50 or the pug team had less than 100 points while the premade had 1000.

If premades in Warzone PvP are a hot topic now, imagine how dire the situation can become with GSFs population and nothing to keep people interested like a PvP season.

Edited July 30, 2023 by Darkestmonty

[Zappathustra]

Hi,

first excuse my bad english ... hope you will understand it.

I know what you mean. But there are not many options for Swtor to solve this.

1- A better matchmaker

2- Reducing the limit for groups (2 pilots or no grp-building). But then it is no MMO anymore.

3- Power-ups during a match (shield/speed/damage) should only be available for pilots with a not-mastered ship

4-Server merge for GSF and PVP

In my opinion nothing will happen.

 

[ValeriyaBlue]

Hey there! Personally, I’m not a fan of joining “stomp group” premades that queue against randoms when there’s no competition and it’s a free win every match. However, this is the very definition of a “skill issue” (not in a dismissive way, but in a factual way): being in a premade doesn’t give you any advantages aside from ensuring the skill levels of some of your team. 
 

The real counterplay to times like this, where there’s an enemy premade, is simply this:

Step 1: Get good - again, not dismissive, the better you are as a pilot the better chances you’ll have. If you’re weaker, and have to hope to be carried every match, your chances will be worse than if you become a skilled pilot in your own right.

Step 2: Make some friends

Step 3: Call on those friends so that when you see the enemy premade, you can form a premade of your own and have an epic premade vs premade battle 

Alternatively, when you start running into the premade, you can recognize which people aren’t in the premade who seem competent and ask if they want to join your counter-premade group. That way you can try and even the odds against the enemy premade. 
 

And yeah, I know my advice boils down to a combination of “get good” and “make your own premade”, but honestly some of the most fun I’ve had in GSF is premade vs premade, and it can make for some really intense and memorable games. In fact, writing this I’m reminded of a night a couple of weeks ago where I was in a 6m premade and we were fighting intensely against an enemy 6m premade led by one of my friends. It was a great time with some really competitive matches. 

[Darkestmonty]

3 hours ago, ValeriyaBlue said:

Hey there! Personally, I’m not a fan of joining “stomp group” premades that queue against randoms when there’s no competition and it’s a free win every match. However, this is the very definition of a “skill issue” (not in a dismissive way, but in a factual way): being in a premade doesn’t give you any advantages aside from ensuring the skill levels of some of your team. 
 

The real counterplay to times like this, where there’s an enemy premade, is simply this:

Step 1: Get good - again, not dismissive, the better you are as a pilot the better chances you’ll have. If you’re weaker, and have to hope to be carried every match, your chances will be worse than if you become a skilled pilot in your own right.

Step 2: Make some friends

Step 3: Call on those friends so that when you see the enemy premade, you can form a premade of your own and have an epic premade vs premade battle 

Alternatively, when you start running into the premade, you can recognize which people aren’t in the premade who seem competent and ask if they want to join your counter-premade group. That way you can try and even the odds against the enemy premade. 
 

And yeah, I know my advice boils down to a combination of “get good” and “make your own premade”, but honestly some of the most fun I’ve had in GSF is premade vs premade, and it can make for some really intense and memorable games. In fact, writing this I’m reminded of a night a couple of weeks ago where I was in a 6m premade and we were fighting intensely against an enemy 6m premade led by one of my friends. It was a great time with some really competitive matches. 

The issue is that GSF has so few players that there is no countering when this guild is running together. Having games where one team consistently only gets 10% of the points against a premade if lucky is going to do long term harm to GSF.

Grouping in GSF should be turned off. It's worse than allowing premade ranked players to queue up agaist non ranked pugs in arena.

I understand the "just start your own guild or group" but that is not possible with something as unpopular as GSF when this guild has the best players from each server.

If this guild continues we will see the population of GSF tank even more.

[Saeten]

There is no balance in GSF for matchmaking. Your point of Premades vs Premades is valid. This should be the model in GSF, Arenas and Warzones. Solo matchmaking will take longer and may never pop if you exclude premades from joining with solos. With such a low population making teams to play GSF and PvP the only way to get matches to pop would be to go cross server matches. There are many obstacles to this and a lot of detractors.  I hope for a better future, but my reality check says this will never happen.  I'll continue to enjoy some solo joining, but realize I may run into stompers/premades and just play as I see fit in any match.

[sharpenedstick]

What they should do is make it so that you can queue with one other person in "solo" queue. Two skilled and coordinated players can impact, if not decide, a GSF or WZ game.

Premades should be put into their own queue (which we all know will never pop because premades are for easy games, but whatever). Players should be able to sit in both queues, just like you could sit in both back in ranked days.

Premaders are 100% against getting them out of normal queue because they want easy games. We know that's the motivation now. Because even those who genuinely believe they're trying to get "steel vs steel" matches know premade vs premade games that aren't pre-arranged are very rare. Amusingly, the second a better premade does get in queue, all the others bail because again, premades are just about easy wins.

This model preserves premade play for those that want it, but improves the queue for most people and most games.

Until then, do what I do. Once I see a premade, I leave the match and stop queueing GSF. Deny them games and they get bored and give up.

Edited August 2, 2023 by sharpenedstick

[philwil]

Here is the deal.  Though, I understand your discouragement with the premade, look at it from the other side.

That being, every member of that premade, has experienced what you experience.

It doesnt even take a premade to get the outcome you describe.

Matchmaker sucks, yes.  However, matchmaker doesnt take into account 3/4 of a team not contributing to the outcome of a match.

Matchmaker, expects people to be attentive and play like they care and want to win.

The real deal is, most teams are comprised of people who dont want to be there.

So, groups, premades tend to form.  Because people that care about the game, want people who care about the outcome as much as they do.

It sucks, yeah I know.  But, if you could solve the people there to just get a match done no matter how, as long as they dont do anything, or even self destruct, you wont solve the group problem.

As it was intended, GSF was made to be a group based game.

Grouping, lowers the risk of bad players on your team.

All you need to do is, invite like minded people to group with you.  Or, even ask to join one.

LFG isnt just a PVE thing.

 

[sharpenedstick]

11 minutes ago, philwil said:

The real deal is, most teams are comprised of people who dont want to be there.

 

This right here is a huge part of the problem. GSF is so efficient that many people are joining to get max conquest or seasons or whatever quickly, because they can mass suicide or afk and still get rewards.

EAware needs to seriously restructure the way conquest and seasons works. But they also need to get premades out of solo queue, because even if they fix conquest and season scaling, they will still have the premade issue.

[philwil]

There is no difference between solo and group queue.  even when they were separate, you still ended up in the same match.  There is no "group instance" nor "solo instance".

There never was.

And as stated, GSF was intended to be a group mode.

[sharpenedstick]

I have no idea what GSF's original intention was. And I doubt you do. But it doesn't matter. We can live in a world where GSF was "intended to be group mode" because it makes no difference.

SWTOR isn't the same game as it was nine years ago when GSF came out. The devs aren't the same. The players aren't the same.

Whatever GSF's original intention (which again, I don't know and you probably don't either), premades are bad for GSF today. And that's what matters.

Premade vs randos have a much higher rate of lopsided games. Lopsided games are bad. Competitive games are good.

GSF gets better for everyone except that small portion of the player base looking for easy wins. Now, the preferences of those premade players aren't irrelevant, but they are must be subordinated to the greater cause of improving the experience for a majority.

[Toraak]

12 minutes ago, sharpenedstick said:

I have no idea what GSF's original intention was. And I doubt you do. But it doesn't matter. We can live in a world where GSF was "intended to be group mode" because it makes no difference.

SWTOR isn't the same game as it was nine years ago when GSF came out. The devs aren't the same. The players aren't the same.

Whatever GSF's original intention (which again, I don't know and you probably don't either), premades are bad for GSF today. And that's what matters.

Premade vs randos have a much higher rate of lopsided games. Lopsided games are bad. Competitive games are good.

GSF gets better for everyone except that small portion of the player base looking for easy wins. Now, the preferences of those premade players aren't irrelevant, but they are must be subordinated to the greater cause of improving the experience for a majority.

You want to get premade players to solo queu? Then get rid of those players that are constantly win trading by either AFK'ing in a match or intentionally Self Destructing. 

 

Many people that would otherwise solo queu are tired of dealing with groups that have 3-4 people doing that nonsense. This is why people group up, so we know we can count on others to help to actually WIN.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Toraak

[sharpenedstick]

GSF needs fundamental work. There's no question about that. Addressing win trading, afking, suiciding, all good and necessary steps. But so is removing premades from solo queue.

[Toraak]

In an MMO that'll never happen. Your supposed to play with friends. It's the main reason to play an MMO.

 

However fixing the SD/AFK problem you'll also get more competitive matches where people will definitely be more willing to solo queu as well as group queu.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Toraak

[sharpenedstick]

With my idea, you can play with friends. In premade queue. Or with one friend, in "solo" queue.

[Toraak]

1 minute ago, sharpenedstick said:

With my idea, you can play with friends. In premade queue. Or with one friend, in "solo" queue.

There is no need to split queu. Besides they took out ranked PvP for a reason. Do you really think they'll split the queu for GSF like they did for ranked after removing ranked? 

 

Never going to happen. 

[sharpenedstick]

There is a need. Premades make games worse. A higher proportion of premade vs rando games are lopsided, compared to rando v rando.

And premades very well may (no way to be sure of this without having access to EAware queue info) depress participation because most people don't enjoy losing 2-50. I know I for one immediately stop queueing if I see a premade, in order to try and slow down their queues.

Everyone who queues in premdaes can still queue in solo, so if they really just want to play to enjoy GSF, they still can. With my idea, they could also queue with one other person.

Then they could also, at the same time, sit in premade queue.

I get you want to preserve your easy wins. I really do. It's not a value I think is particularly important, but I acknowledge premaders want it. But the health of GSF as whole would be improved with the removal of premades into their own queue, and that's what matters.

As for "never going to happen," the very defensiveness of premade protectors makes it pretty clear y'all worried it could.

 

[jaingskiratanuul]

 /cjoin gsf

 /4 anyone want to group up to counter the premade?

95% chance someone will

[Darkestmonty]

1 hour ago, philwil said:

There is no difference between solo and group queue.  even when they were separate, you still ended up in the same match.  There is no "group instance" nor "solo instance".

There never was.

And as stated, GSF was intended to be a group mode.

GSF was also intended to be a massive success and big revenue generator until Bioware realized it was failure in both categories. Just because part of a game design was intended to function one way does not mean it can survive and thrive without adapting to important factors like... being the lowest populated PvP portion of the game by multitudes.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Darkestmonty

[sharpenedstick]

Every claim that there are plenty of premades available to play other premades simply reinforces the value in bifurcating the queues. Under this argument, if premades were in their own queue, that queue would pop so why is it bad to put them in their own queue? Of course, we all know it wouldn't pop.

What premaders need to do to address the argument that premades should be kicked out of normal queues is to present the value premades are adding to the game.

Currently, the primary value is that premade players enjoy playing in premades. That's not nothing. But since much of that experience is stomping randos, even if that isn't what they wanted, that's what's happening and that's bad for GSF as a whole.

 

Edited August 2, 2023 by sharpenedstick

[DakhathKilrathi]

As a solo player: lol what premades i know of like two 

Also as a solo player: https://i.imgur.com/y6cubaz.png

Here's me changing the outcome of a match. By myself. I end up making a good chunk of games lopsided too. If we follow the same logic used against premades, isn't allowing me to queue also unfair? 

Also, if I pick up a few people who are less experienced so I can essentially tank for them, isn't that a good thing? 

And now since I feel like being lazy I'm just going to quote myself from one of the other threads I've wasted time in on this. Insert Broadsword instead of Bioware.

 

Quote

Here's a summary of my stance on the issue:

 

Groups are fine. There is a matchmaking problem where there aren't enough comparable groups or players of similar skill to put against the groups. This could be addressed with better matchmaking, since number of games played is a silly metric that doesn't tell you very much at all about how good a player is. Mastered vs not is even less useful, especially with requisition being so easy to come by.

 

Playing with your friends in an MMO is never wrong.

 

I agree that there is a matchmaking problem, but I see it as Bioware's problem to fix; it's not up to the players. Telling people not to group because it's too hard to beat them if they do is just like telling someone not to play because they're so much better than the randoms that it's not fair if they do.

 

Same argument, different application of it.

 

Your fun isn't the other team's responsibility. I don't like to solo queue against groups. So I... don't. It's a really easy solution.

 

Edited to add: There is a reason that matchmaker puts you into a group. It's because the game is intended to be played by a group. You just decide whether or not you want to pick who is part of that group.

And the all-important: 

 

Quote

GSF is a group game. You decide whether or not you want to choose who is in your group. You don't have to, but you will be in a group regardless. Matchmaking is essentially RNG, so even if what you are suggesting was reasonable (and it's not), it wouldn't work.

 

Games would still end up lopsided even if you somehow got the devs to implement this terrible idea. See above. I have other examples, too!
https://i.imgur.com/Rxz0nUD.png or 
https://i.imgur.com/NUymy3C.png
And my personal favorite: 
https://i.imgur.com/1prQOi1.png

I especially like this one for showing how lopsided a game can be with solo players. Removing premades does not solve your problem, and in fact removes one of the ways that less experienced players might be better able to deal with me or players like me. 

Edited August 2, 2023 by DakhathKilrathi

[sharpenedstick]

7 minutes ago, DakhathKilrathi said:

I especially like this one for showing how lopsided a game can be with solo players. Removing premades does not solve your problem, and in fact removes one of the ways that less experienced players might be better able to deal with me or players like me. 

Wrong, better matchmaking is how you address the issue of lopsided genuinely solo games.

Of course removing premades won't single-handedly prevent all matched from being lopsided. There are many reasons why a match could be lopsided, and premades are one of them.

The goal is to reduce the number of lopsided matches. Therefore, you address factors that contribute to them, until you have improved match parity.

1. Improve the matchmaker. I have no clue how they calculate teams now, but it's hard to think of a system that wouldn't be better.

2. Remove premades, but permit people to enter "solo" queue with up to one person.

3. Reduce the incentive for non-GSF players, who have no interest in GSF as a format or experience, from queueing GSF because it is the most efficient source of grind track points.

4. Punish suiciders and afkers

5. Regular balance passes to keep the ship designs and abilities more fairly executed.

Stuff like "ZOMG PREMADE NO FIX EVERYTHING NO FIX PREMADE!!!" is so ridiculous that any analysis that includes it can be completely disregarded.

Edited August 2, 2023 by sharpenedstick

[Ramalina]

27 minutes ago, sharpenedstick said:

Every claim that there are plenty of premades available to play other premades simply reinforces the value in bifurcating the queues.

What premaders need to do to address the argument that premades should be kicked out of normal queues is to present the value premades are adding to the game.

Currently, the primary value is that premade players enjoy playing in premades. That's not nothing. But since much of that experience is stomping randos, even if that isn't what they wanted, that's what's happening and that's bad for GSF as a whole.

 

Absent a matchmaker that's better at balancing teams than pure random chance, I'm not sure it would really help much.   I don't think you appreciate how frequently the matchmaker will put all of the skilled players on one team even if they're solo queued.   If I'm doing the weekly on 3 alts on an evening, I generally expect that to happen at least once and more often than not several times.   I frequently keep a silly/stupid ship build on my bar because stomping the crap out of helpless randos gets stale pretty quickly, as there's no challenge to it.

 

At the end of the day the people who stomp the crap out of new players are the people who stomp the crap out of new players.   Grouped or solo, the crap still gets stomped.

 

The issue is that GSF is a game mode that is hyper-sensitive to player skill.   If you lack basic defensive skills, you will be utterly demolished any time you encounter someone with basic or better offensive skills.   If you lack basic offensive skills, you'll pretty much never kill anything except by accident.   If you lack strategic skills, your team will never really respond effectively to what's happening in the match, and will likely lose.   None of those skills are taught well in the tutorial (which I'm convinced most people don't even know exists), so unless a player makes the effort to find resources to learn those skills, they are doomed to get stomped, again and again and again, until they go learn them.   Most people don't bother, and therefore are doomed to be perma-stompees.    Learning how to exit that state is not that hard.   Someone who knows what they're doing can teach all the basics in probably 3 hours or less.   Figure maybe twice as long plus a lot of practice if you just read/watch videos instead of having a real live teacher on voice chat.

 

The lack of a structured PvE introductory experience for GSF is a gaping hole in the game design for GSF, and absent a reasonably safe PvE learning environment players just have to learn the hard way.  This has always been arguably the greatest weakness in the design of GSF.

 

If it's any consolation, as SWTOR's population has dwindled over the years the population of GSF aces has dwindled even more.   You're less likely to be farmed into oblivion today than you would have been 6 months after GSF was released.   Ship balance is a lot better too, so farming new players takes more work and time these days.

 

Oh, for another value to add to your list, given that most players can't be bothered to look up anything about GSF outside of the game, a premade of skilled players is probably the only chance most players have of seeing what skilled play looks like, and possibly learning by trying to imitate it.

[sharpenedstick]

13 minutes ago, Ramalina said:

The issue is that GSF is a game mode that is hyper-sensitive to player skill.   If you lack basic defensive skills, you will be utterly demolished any time you encounter someone with basic or better offensive skills.   If you lack basic offensive skills, you'll pretty much never kill anything except by accident.   If you lack strategic skills, your team will never really respond effectively to what's happening in the match, and will likely lose.   None of those skills are taught well in the tutorial (which I'm convinced most people don't even know exists), so unless a player makes the effort to find resources to learn those skills, they are doomed to get stomped, again and again and again, until they go learn them.   Most people don't bother, and therefore are doomed to be perma-stompees.    Learning how to exit that state is not that hard.   Someone who knows what they're doing can teach all the basics in probably 3 hours or less.   Figure maybe twice as long plus a lot of practice if you just read/watch videos instead of having a real live teacher on voice chat.

I play a good amount of GSF, and my character name is probably not entirely unknown to other active GSFers on my server. I'm not claiming to be an ace or anything, but I consistently perform well. I'm very familiar with the distribution of GSF queue behaviors.

This is another "separating premades won't fix everything, so don't do it" argument. The reality is putting premades into their own queue will reduce lopsided matches. Now, it's fine to say you don't care about that as a value. People are entitled to different value judgments. But I do care about it.

People who believe that if one adjustment can't fix everything, then it shouldn't be done, are very curious to me.

Edited August 2, 2023 by sharpenedstick

[DakhathKilrathi]

oh my god three years and we still are not reading what i post why do i bother

Okay. Let's try again. Very slowly this time. 

I am not saying that removing premades might not reduce the amount of imbalanced matches. I can concede that it might, though I would like to repeat my point that the best chance average players have against aces is to group up. Those two can and probably do cancel each other out, given the number of true premades actively playing at this point in time. 

You can also reduce the amount of imbalanced matches by not allowing people to queue if they are good enough or bad enough. You could call it putting them in queues with people of similar ability, but - assuming you could even accurately track skill, which is another discussion - the reality of it would be that they just wouldn't be able to play. 

That's about as fair as telling people they can't play with their friends, or telling me that I can't grab a group of people I saw struggling so I can help out and ensure matchmaker doesn't put me against them again. 

The game mode has other, larger problems. Dev time and attention would be better spent on those problems.

[Toraak]

1 hour ago, sharpenedstick said:

There is a need. Premades make games worse. A higher proportion of premade vs rando games are lopsided, compared to rando v rando.

And premades very well may (no way to be sure of this without having access to EAware queue info) depress participation because most people don't enjoy losing 2-50. I know I for one immediately stop queueing if I see a premade, in order to try and slow down their queues.

 

As for "never going to happen," the very defensiveness of premade protectors makes it pretty clear y'all worried it could.

 

I love to say this, so I will.

 

This is False. There is an equal  proportion of Lopsided matches regardless if it's random Vs random or Premade Vs Random. When I solo queu'd I saw just as many 50-15 matches as I did when Premades are queu'd up, 

 

The difference is people just assume that because it was a lopsided match it must be a premade on the other side. It usually isn't. It's just Matchmaker being bad or simply 1 or 2 Vets on one team.

 

I'm not being defensive at all. I'm being realistic. This is an MMO. That means GROUP CONTENT. GSF is supposed to be a TEAM game mode. Just because you can queu up solo doesn't negate that fact. If GSF was supposed to be for solo queu, then GSF would be a 1v1 game mode simple as that. 

 

They will never remove the option to group queu.