Just end premades for solo queing

[philwil]

I do a work around for "premades".

If you happen to be on a server that has more than one match at a time (SF does, many times), look to see what match they are in.

If you can figure that out, you can "off queue".

Which means, dont accept the pop they have just taken.

Wait for the next one.

If you are on opposite faction as the premade, then its a 50/50 shot because you cant check, other than asking someone in match if they are there.

[Lord_Malganus]

and there is a reason for less population. 🙂

[Warped]

41 minutes ago, Toraak said:

If I could not group at all for GSF, I'd ignore it.

I don't know how many times i need to say this, but being thrown against an ENTIRE FULL PREMADE TEAM isn't promoting GSF as an enjoyable time that more people should enjoy. 

[Warped]

4 minutes ago, philwil said:

I do a work around for "premades".

If you happen to be on a server that has more than one match at a time (SF does, many times), look to see what match they are in.

If you can figure that out, you can "off queue".

Which means, dont accept the pop they have just taken.

Wait for the next one.

If you are on opposite faction as the premade, then its a 50/50 shot because you cant check, other than asking someone in match if they are there.

I do this. the next que pop is usually either the next match with the same premade, or it's the same match that other players have noped out of. 
 

[philwil]

Just now, Warped said:

I don't know how many times i need to say this, but being thrown against an ENTIRE FULL PREMADE TEAM isn't promoting GSF as an enjoyable time that more people should enjoy. 

Til you are blue in the face?  Cause it aint going away.  This is the tenth year.  Zero effort is going to go into gsf in any way, shape, or form unfortunately.

It will most likely be this way until they pull the power plug on the servers.

The changes they made at 5.5 were intended to make it more group-centric.

I know, its unpalatable.  But thats the gods honest truth.

This has been gone over many times, before you even mentioned it here.  And, there it lies on the dust heap of history.

I feel ya.  But it isnt going to change.

[sharpenedstick]

2 hours ago, philwil said:

Zero effort is going to go into gsf SWTOR in any way, shape, or form unfortunately.

Fixed it for you.

[Toraak]

3 hours ago, Warped said:

I don't know how many times i need to say this, but being thrown against an ENTIRE FULL PREMADE TEAM isn't promoting GSF as an enjoyable time that more people should enjoy. 

And what part of Dropping premade size from 8 to 4 is so bad? Your no longer facing an entire full premade team then. That would make it far better then it is now. Your demand of removing premades all together in an MMO is simply silly. People play these games to play with friends.

[DeadBySun]

90% premrades its just wet dreams of newbies and killfarmers if we take 8 vs 8. Problems of warzones its a kill farmers, coz they think they are awesome with 8m++ total dmg and 20+ kills. But who cares about that numbers when u lost all objects.  The solutione only its remove afk defending points to minimum (that u cant get in afk mode on deffing more then 3 medlas), remove all dmg medals and medals for kills left only one, and add some kind of penalty who got less then 6 medals in 3 warzones in a row, that u can queue for wz, but can go in arena where 90% kill farmers die in 20 seconds with 0 dmg.  And maybe people start playing for win not for personal score. 

 

But one more time premrades, maybe beer friends yeap but normal premrades dead since removed ranked, coz i see only one-two times normal chain control for 100 wzs.

[Warped]

23 minutes ago, DeadBySun said:

90% premrades its just wet dreams of newbies and killfarmers if we take 8 vs 8. Problems of warzones its a kill farmers, coz they think they are awesome with 8m++ total dmg and 20+ kills. But who cares about that numbers when u lost all objects.  The solutione only its remove afk defending points to minimum (that u cant get in afk mode on deffing more then 3 medlas), remove all dmg medals and medals for kills left only one, and add some kind of penalty who got less then 6 medals in 3 warzones in a row, that u can queue for wz, but can go in arena where 90% kill farmers die in 20 seconds with 0 dmg.  And maybe people start playing for win not for personal score. 

 

But one more time premrades, maybe beer friends yeap but normal premrades dead since removed ranked, coz i see only one-two times normal chain control for 100 wzs.

This is about GSF, which didn't have ranked. 

[Ramalina]

On 12/4/2023 at 4:57 PM, Warped said:

with all due respect, a full premade against a bunch of solo queing players, is never fun. there will always be blow outs, but being up against full premades every single time makes people not want to play GSF.

 

also, if I solo queue, I get put up against a premade,

If i make a premade..... I GET PUT UP AGAIST A PREMADE

I've had plenty of fun games solo queued against premades.  I've had plenty of fun games where a purely solo queued team beat a premade.

 

Pressing the Group Battle dialog button does not make players more skilled.   I would be nice if it did, but it doesn't.  Throw a bunch of noobs in a premade, and they're just as doomed as they were in the solo queue.

 

There are 2 or 3 exceptional premades, none of which fly regularly anymore as far as I'm aware, where if you're not one of the other exceptional premades, then yeah, your team is probably doomed.

    For the more average guild or casual GSFer premades, the premade really isn't determinative of match outcome.  There might be one or two people on the team to really worry about, but what matchmaker does in terms of filling the non-grouped slots on both teams is typically more important than the mere presence of a premade.    Having the 3 or 4 people who are AFKing, or busy whining in Ops chat instead actually make a cursory effort to play well, is about as good having the average casual premade on your side.    There's a world of difference between an ineffective player who dies 8 times vs 4 times, or who get 150 objective points vs 25.   People who kinda suck but put in at least minimal effort can be carried against a premade.  People fully dedicated to doing the "moping potato" style of play usually can't.

 

  Premades also aren't as common as some people think they are.   Match maker is fairly consistently stupid.   Given the same small pool of people in the GSF pool, it will tend to group them similarly from match to match.   It doesn't learn from making horribly imbalanced matches, so it's happy to repeat the same team composition mistakes multiple times in a row.   Seeing the same people in a team 4 matches in a row really doesn't tell you anything about whether there's a premade queuing or if it's just matchmaker being matchmaker.   You have to actually message one of the players and ask in order to find out.

 

The core complaint against premades really boils down to: "I want to win more games."    To which the answer is legitimately: learn to play better.    Get to the point where 80000 damage, 20 kills, and 50% accuracy (70% or better if in gunship), are fairly routine for you, and premades become not that much of an issue.   You'll have a sporting chance of beating them on your own, and your team will have a sporting chance of winning by taking advantage of the premade focusing too much on you.

 

I'm not quite there myself, but I'm close enough that aside from the 2 or 3 specific premades I mentioned, if matchmaker can throw me one other fairly decent player, and avoid lumbering me with people who are arguably flying more for the other team than for the one they're on, I'm not bothered by premades because two decent players + a remainder that aren't actively sabotaging have a reasonable chance of winning.    The hard part is getting good at a game mode where there's not good in-game learning experience, you have to go out and pretty much literally do your own homework.   Once you are good though, the barrier to beating a mediocre premade is not really that high.   The crapshoot of matchmaker is still the crapshoot of matchmaker regardless.

 

Besides, how would people explain away their losses if there weren't premades to blame?   It could cause a mental health crisis for people who are convinced that their incredible loss rate doesn't have anything to do with their lack of comprehension of even the most basic GSF game mechanics.

[Warped]

2 hours ago, Ramalina said:

The core complaint against premades really boils down to: "I want to win more games."    To which the answer is legitimately: learn to play better. 

the core complaint is being curb stomped every single match by a FULL PREMADE. loosing a close or even lopsided match is part of the game, loosing 50-2 or 1000-5 match after match after match because of, (if it's not abundantly clear by now)  FULL PREMADES, is the complaint. 

 

2 hours ago, Ramalina said:

There are 2 or 3 exceptional premades, none of which fly regularly anymore as far as I'm aware,

really? then why are they almost always on? why does the match maker seem to always put them on the same side every match if they aren't a premade? Why is it that i can fly 10 matches in a row on different toons and I'm still against the same people? 

 

on the rare occurrence that I'm not matched against one of the SAME PREMADES over and over, GSF is fun and enjoyable. it's the full premades that are the problem. 

[Toraak]

36 minutes ago, Warped said:

the core complaint is being curb stomped every single match by a FULL PREMADE. loosing a close or even lopsided match is part of the game, loosing 50-2 or 1000-5 match after match after match because of, (if it's not abundantly clear by now)  FULL PREMADES, is the complaint. 

 

really? then why are they almost always on? why does the match maker seem to always put them on the same side every match if they aren't a premade? Why is it that i can fly 10 matches in a row on different toons and I'm still against the same people? 

 

on the rare occurrence that I'm not matched against one of the SAME PREMADES over and over, GSF is fun and enjoyable. it's the full premades that are the problem. 

The premades they are referring to are not the ones that are currently flying. Ramalina is referring to 3 premades that have long since stopped flying to my knowledge. One of them does make an appearance every few months but it's very rare.

 

Edit: I'd list the 3 I believe Ramalina is referring to, however since I think it would be against the forums rules I'll just say. One of them started off on Bastion I believe, another on Shadowlands, and I think the 3rd was on JC originally (tho I may have this one wrong).

Edited December 6, 2023 by Toraak

[Ramalina]

5 hours ago, Warped said:

the core complaint is being curb stomped every single match by a FULL PREMADE. loosing a close or even lopsided match is part of the game, loosing 50-2 or 1000-5 match after match after match because of, (if it's not abundantly clear by now)  FULL PREMADES, is the complaint.

This does not require a full premade.  It just requires everyone on your team to be bad at GSF.  I can think of at least 10 people who are active these days in GSF, who by themselves, are capable of pulling off this sort of thing against a really weak team.   It's sort of diagnostic of crappy matchmaking where for reasons known only to devs that probably moved on from SWTOR years ago, the matchmaker decides that putting all the weakest players on the same team is the thing to do.   It happens.  Back when GSF and SWTOR had populations much bigger than now and a GSF Scoreboard Records thread was maintained, the record entries were mostly that sort of game, where one or two skilled people rampage over a team that contains zero players that know how to effectively counter them.  I 100% guarantee that grouping is not needed to do this, because I've done it solo myself.   I'm at the bottom of the ace level skill spectrum, so I need an especially weak team to fly against in order to pull it off, but this is doable by a solo player, and fairly easy for a pair at the right skill level.

  I'm curious though, what server and what times does this premade run?  Cause I'd actually like to fly against a premade skilled enough to tilt the win/loss odds as much as you say they do.

6 hours ago, Warped said:

really? then why are they almost always on? why does the match maker seem to always put them on the same side every match if they aren't a premade? Why is it that i can fly 10 matches in a row on different toons and I'm still against the same people?

  Small pool of players, players tend to play at routine times that fit their personal schedules, matchmaker uses the same algorithm for every match.   It's not really surprising for teams to be more or less the same multiple matches in a row.  

 

5 hours ago, Toraak said:

The premades they are referring to are not the ones that are currently flying. Ramalina is referring to 3 premades that have long since stopped flying to my knowledge. One of them does make an appearance every few months but it's very rare.

 

Edit: I'd list the 3 I believe Ramalina is referring to, however since I think it would be against the forums rules I'll just say. One of them started off on Bastion I believe, another on Shadowlands, and I think the 3rd was on JC originally (tho I may have this one wrong).

You sir, are a true scholar of GSF history, as shown by this very accurate assesment.
 

[philwil]

2 hours ago, Ramalina said:

  I'm curious though, what server and what times does this premade run?  Cause I'd actually like to fly against a premade skilled enough to tilt the win/loss odds as much as you say they do.

  Small pool of players, players tend to play at routine times that fit their personal schedules, matchmaker uses the same algorithm for every match.   It's not really surprising for teams to be more or less the same multiple matches in a row.  

 

 

Ill say, the one most frequently talked about is on SF.  And they tend to fly through the day and night.  You do know, they can queue up to 8 for their team now.

So, basically you can pick your entire team before you queue now.  Wouldnt be so bad if they went 2 4 man teams.

Dont get me wrong.  They dont always have all 8 filled.  Not against groups so much as how long they can keep going.  They certainly arent up to SIN, SRW or Drakolich standards.  But still against the general population, you can certainly sway more wins your way in this configuration.

It is what it is.

Just like slicing.  Part of the game, and you work around it as best you can.,

If that isnt the server they are talking about, well.  This is the two cents worth on SF server, lol.

Edited December 7, 2023 by philwil

[Ramalina]

SF is my home server, and the premades there don't worry me.   There are 3 specific players that sometime play in groups (usually pairs or threes), that worry me, but it's entirely down to their personal skill, not to their grouped/not-grouped status.  They also solo queue quite a lot.  There are also some players that predominantly solo queue that worry me about as much.

 

For the premades in general, you've got a decent shot at victory with two good players on your team and nobody at the bottom actively trying to sabotage the team.

 

I should probably visit SS and DM at some point and see how they're doing GSF-wise these days.  My understanding is that the queues are smaller, so a premade might tilt things a bit more on them.

[Warped]

On 12/6/2023 at 6:54 PM, Ramalina said:

This does not require a full premade.  It just requires everyone on your team to be bad at GSF. 

ok. once again....... since you haven't grasped the concept:

FULL. PREMADES. SHOULD. NOT. BE. IN. THE. SAME. QUEUE. AS. SOLO. QUEUE. PLAYERS.

i don't know how else to state this. i don't care about whatever situational excuse there is for a horrible loss, that's irrelevant to my point. 

[Toraak]

2 hours ago, Warped said:

ok. once again....... since you haven't grasped the concept:

FULL. PREMADES. SHOULD. NOT. BE. IN. THE. SAME. QUEUE. AS. SOLO. QUEUE. PLAYERS.

i don't know how else to state this. i don't care about whatever situational excuse there is for a horrible loss, that's irrelevant to my point. 

And watch the queu get Demoralized when they realize 1 player is the reason they get steamrolled. It's easier just to blame the big bad premades.

[philwil]

for the most part

[kozmicaos]

I've seen this pattern: the only kind of people that defend premades are the ones that play premades. There's absolutely no advantage for solo players in this regard. Solo players just get farmed at these queues, as they lose time to complete the dailies and weeklies, which only brings frustration of the subsequent losses. New players will just abandon any kind of PVP, since there are many other contents to be played. Veteran solo players usually quit the queue right away when they recognize the premades.

Another pattern is the gaslighting and evasive answers from premade players about this subject, trying to reduce the problem at non existence, or trying to point the "incompetence" of solo players to play "good".

Premades play with teamspeak or any kind of voice software. Their attacks are very coordinated just as the ability of the group to defend each other, something that you won't see in a great length in solo play. They play together in way that, at warzones, for example, they easily chain stun a single target. They combine their abilities in synergy, making very hard for solo players to go against them. The majority of the results are almost always the same: solos players get obliterated by these groups.

And since the problem is not solved, you see less and less people playing GSF and PVP in general, specially GSF since the learning curve is very difficult. The queues are taking more and more time as the time pass by.

Edited December 19, 2023 by kozmicaos

[myrrhbear]

YES.  Premades being matched against people queing solo should ABSOLUTELY and obviously be removed from GSF.  

This would be for the betterment of the experience of GSF and of SWTOR as a whole for the VAST majority of players, and especially for the newer players who have yet to decide if they like this GSF or even if they enjoy SWTOR.  

You will always have people - a VERY noisy tiny group of people - who will shout out that since this is a multiplayer game it makes no sense to impede the premade groups.  This is a red herring.  The game remains a multiplayer experience whether everyone joins the queue solo or not.  The specific people who shout about this are the experts in GSF, who represent a TINY fraction of the players.  The enjoyment these people get from queing as a group is ENTIRELY at the expense of 90%+ of the rest of the players.  The premade people have been luxuriating in being allowed to completely steamroll the opposing team for years.  It's comparable to an NBA team showing up on a primary school playground and going ALL OUT to completely dominate the kids... and then (to their own embarrassment) they gloat about it and praise each other for this... victory???  Of COURSE they don't want this to get taken away from them.  They're having fun constantly destroying the other team, in match, after match, after match, for hours and hours, day after day.  It's the very tiny group of people who are hardcore about GSF but who refuse to choose of their own accord to queue solo who are going to make a big fuss and they have spent years contriving rationalisations for their bullying of the rest of the community in GSF.  But they account for such a small percentage of players and it makes no sense to give these bullies more power by bowing to their demands and their shouting.  It's totally obvious how they are actively circumventing the intended design of the matchmaker which otherwise should be splitting up skilful players as close to 50/50 as possible.  I have hundreds of screenshots spanning years of this craziness of the premade groups getting scores of 1000 to 10.  There's just no excuse for this. 

The result of these gangs of premades trolling the other 90%+ of people is that GSF has become widely hated by most people in SWTOR.  Que times are often terrible.  Adding GSF to Conquest and Galactic Seasons tasks helped somewhat, but only insofar as people do what they have to for the task then get out of there.  As a side effect this also resulted in many more people sitting idle in matches, because they hate GSF due to the premades, but they want to complete the tasks.  The premade people bully the new players additionally by complaining wanting to more easily be able to kick out those who rightly are miserable getting one-shot constantly, over and over, who then go afk.  A MUCH better solution would be to make GSF more fun for newer players, which would obviously need matches to feel more fair and balanced.  Premade groups decimating GSF makes everyone quit queing, and often makes people log off altogether.  It makes SWTOR feel like such a hostile environment altogether for many people, and drives them away to find other games.  The negative snowball effect is that the more premades there are, the more the 90%+ of people who are miserable due to that quit, which means ques are longer, which in turn makes fewer people interested, and in turn GSF gets less and less attention and stops being of value to invest into improving.  How long has it been since there were ANY improvements to GSF like new ship types or new match types or maps?  But simply removing the Group Queue button could well help GSF get back on track, be more balanced, be therefore more fun and more inviting, could retain player interest, shortening queue times, and thereby drawing in even more people.  It has the potential to be VERY fun, if only it wasn't plagued with the totally absurd imbalance generated by having teams of expert players on comms together destroying teams of solo new players who might as well just be grass getting mowed down by a lawnmower.

Only allowing people qued as a group to be put in matches against others who qued as a group is a sensible and highly effective way to address a serious problem.

In the absence of being able to queue as a group against people queued solo, if everyone qued solo, *though it would remain far from perfect*, the matchmaker system built expressly with the intent of balancing the team by splitting skilful players, would have a BETTER chance more often to balance the match.  It would still of course often be unbalanced, but any improvement MATTERS and has value.  Not doing something that could improve the game a certain percentage of the time for the majority of players just because it still won't be perfect is ridiculous.  

The enjoyment of a tiny group of people which is derived by exploiting an easy way around the intended match balancing design, who make the vast majority of people hate this game, and who refuse to see it as a choice of good sportsmanship, but insist on feeling entitled to destroy others experiences if the game lets them... is NOT a valid reason to let this go on.  Let those people queue only against other premades.  Let them earn their sense of success when in a fair fight.  Let the rest of the community have a chance to get into and enjoy GSF for the fun game it could be, by having a better chance at more fairly balanced matches more often, because the matchmaker is able to do what it was designed for - SPLIT the skilled players even into opposing teams. 

Edited December 22, 2023 by myrrhbear

[Traceguy]

On 12/3/2023 at 9:23 PM, Warped said:

Premades completely ruin this mode. if you queue solo, then you should be against people that only solo queue. Premades should only face other premades. More people will queue if they know they won't won't be steam-rolled by a full premade group match after match after match. it immediately makes people quit playing. 

Disagree 100% and the toxic "pReMaDe" complaining gets really annoying on the fleet. GSF takes around 6 hours to pop. I don't care if I am fighting premades. I just want to get my GSF conquest points and be done until the next Tuesday.

By gatekeeping what premade and solo players do, you essentially making it more difficult for a solo queuer like myself to get a match.

Edited February 7 by Traceguy

[Traceguy]

On 12/19/2023 at 1:28 PM, kozmicaos said:

I've seen this pattern: the only kind of people that defend premades are the ones that play premades. There's absolutely no advantage for solo players in this regard.

Solo queuer here, so you're wrong. The advantage is more GSF pops.

On 12/19/2023 at 1:28 PM, kozmicaos said:

 Solo players just get farmed at these queues, as they lose time to complete the dailies and weeklies, which only brings frustration of the subsequent losses.

Not true. The weekly is to play at most 4 matches. The Conquest weekly is to play each ship on 5 matches.

Therefore, win or lose, I have to play 5 matches.

Edited February 7 by Traceguy

[Deadria]

i used to do premades...then i turned myself into a pickle. now i ONLY solo no matter how many ppl ask me to group because alone i can make a match completely lopsided.....i dont need help making it worse. i also like taking out premades who think stacking a team is gonna save them....there are 2 premades that i just dont care to play with or against because the matches are so boring tho but i play an SF and SS so i can just switch servers

Edited February 7 by Deadria

[StrixHiraeth]

On 12/4/2023 at 6:26 AM, Warped said:

so a small group can hold the entire queue ransom? durr dee duur GeT beTTer

 

I wonder what number of individual players comprises the "entire queue" for GSF.  It isn't like "other games" or "other PvP modes" because really the only people playing GSF are those who really want to fly Star Wars ships around in dogfighting in SWTOR.  Which sounds niche, right?

I'd estimate that a premade group of 4 players is 10%-20% of the entire queue during "primetime" hours.  I base this on the number of times I see the same names repeatedly in a 3-ish hour session of solo queueing.  Personally I love solo queueing because even if I get shredded by premades I'm still flying purple freaking tie fighters shooting purple freaking lasers which is purple freaking cool.

So, whether or not that "small group" can "hold the entire queue ransom" is actually debatable.

I'm not on either side, I'm merely pointing out relevant facts for all of us to consider.  Pretty much my MO in life.  Cheers.

[Toraak]

The better question is "When is Broadsword going to take these Self Destructor's seriously and Ban them?" These types of people will get players to stop queu'ing for GSF more then premades do.

 

Knowing someone is intentionally Win trading makes people not want to waste time in GSF. I won't name any names, but for those that know a certain player that moved from SS to SF a few months ago, they've been Self Destructing like mad lately. Yesterday alone I saw them Self Destruct in back to back matches 20 times, and 27 times (having done 0's across the board in every other category). Broadsword should take note of this behavior and start punishing these players appropriately

Edited February 10 by Toraak