Doom, do you think what I said above would drive up q times much for anyone (if it is implemented well)? I don't think it will more than a few minutes. Also, and this is very important, very many people don't pvp that often anymore because of their bad experiences. If we make their experiences better then q times will go down due to more people q'n up.

Doom, do you think what I said above would drive up q times much for anyone (if it is implemented well)? I don't think it will more than a few minutes. Also, and this is very important, very many people don't pvp that often anymore because of their bad experiences. If we make their experiences better then q times will go down due to more people q'n up.

 

If I read it correctly (and I apologize for not commenting earlier), you are suggesting that the matchmaking system actually take into account party size when setting up matches?

 

For example, 2 4man premades queue, 8 pugs. The game will -never- allow it to be the 2 premades vs the 8 pugs, but will instead match 1 premad+4 pugs to 1 premade+4 pugs.

 

If I understood that correctly, then I'd agree. It would still be inclusive (allowing 1-4 people to queue together) while leveling the playing field. I think with current populations it would raise queue times... but, cross server queueing would easily fix that.

Your comment about GW2 has been noted. As I am unfamiliar with that games setup of servers, cross-server queueing, and population, there is no comparison that can be drawn, but thank you for mentioning it.

 

I've only quoted the paragraph above for a very simple reason. If you are asking someone to do -more- work then you are willing to do yourself, you are lazy. Plain, Simple, Truth.

 

Until you stop being lazy and simplistic in your thinking, it is unlikely we can engage in an equal conversation.

 

And here's my problem. That is exactly what you are doing. You are asking for a group of complete strangers, from different guilds and using different software(vent, ts, rw, etc) to magically come together and face off against a group of guildies using the same software, pre-organized before the match and fully aware of each others strengths and weaknesses.

 

Somehow the random strangers need to get the software downloaded, installed, get the channels setup, have everyone meet and greet and setup a strategy in the what.. minute before the match starts? Right..

 

But hey, lets just call the pug players lazy. That'll show them!

 

Look the system as is doesn't work. It rewards the people who don't want competition, who are in your own words too lazy to get organized for ranked warzones and much rather just stomp the undergeared, underprepared and unorganized pugs rather than face a team that'll actually challenge them. I don't think that asking a guild to create a full premade in order to compete in ranked PVP is somehow more of a stretch then asking complete strangers to organize themselves to face off against a premade. On the other hand, a completely random queue actually involves more of the player base, creating a vastly larger pool of players who will then start organizing themselves into their own premades to do ranked pvp that in the long term improves that aspect of the game as well.

 

It is a win/win situation.... except for those players seeking free kills and easy wins. I'd challenge you to prove me wrong, but well.. I've played games where such changes have been made and seen the results.

Edited November 4, 2012 by SammuelSK

It's very simple Samuel.

 

I have not asked you to do anything more than I have done.

 

You are asking me to do twice what you have done.

 

If you can not see the inequallity, then I have nothing else to say to you.

Less and less people are pvp'ing now, sometimes it takes 45-60 mins for a pop to happen.... I've noticed a trend on certain servers you get a few PvP guilds that do nothing but make up 4 man premades and ruin all the fun for people who just want jump into a quick warzone... What happens is you can go against a fully geared out premade who's on vent/mumble/team speak and they pretty much just own everyone...

 

Bioware you need to add a PUG only warzone option, this will level the playing field more and allow people to just have fun.... If not, less and less people are going to pvp due to frustration with the situation..

 

While I dont really think premades ruin it...more like make it more challenging, I do think that these premades should suck it up and do rateds. It disgusts me how many premades I see in regs from guilds that often have enough on to do rateds. Just pathetic to call themselves pvpers imho. Rateds would pop way more frequently if some of these guilds actually learned 2 play and qued for rateds instead of beating disorganized pugs to make them feel better.

Don't know if it's premades but there does seem to be some sort of newer gear disparity happening even with MK2s and all that. At least from my perspective. People joining PvP new don't have half as much of a grind and the MK2's a fair enough buffer but they're still entering into WZs where a WH Pyro will come and spike them in, like 3-4 GCDs or even less.

 

That's a morale thing. I have fine gear and it's hard to deal with a WZ where I'm running with half a team at 13k, sometimes with the match starting with six on my side, and generally facing classes which still are in need of tuning.

 

Some people stick with it. Some people have always stuck with it. Back through RNG bags and all kinds of things. But I think PvP might actually be in a worse place than it was back then. TTK for some specs is insanely high and does not balance out with the uptimes for tanks or other targets.

 

Disparity is huge. Have a well geared main. Tank. Easily get the minimum 8 medals and more. (I know, I know. Tank. Hublablabla). Even with some intro BM pieces from stocked coms...I just played with my DPS character and we got so stomped that my total medal gain was...1.

 

ONE. I don't know how that's possible even with someone incompetent behind the screen, let alone someone who knows what they are doing. And yet, uptime was so pitiful that not one of us could counter the enemy team.

Doom, rift went through several iterations. First was a premade matching that made q's long since you always HAD to fight a premade. Then they made it so that premades were often matched if possible but if it was taking more than a few mins you got in against pugs. Then later they even made it mixed faction teams. These helped a lot but Rift also killed a lot of viable specs shortly after the 2nd iteration and myself along with many of my pvp friends got bored and left since all of us played 4 or 5 pvp specs. We had a lot of fun when premade matching actually started to work though.

I'm seeing this more and more on The Progenitor too, premades from Requiem & Sith Dominion roflstomping undergeared/unorganized PUG's for lolz rather than fighting equal opponents in ranked. I don't mind facing them too much, but it makes for boring matches even when I'm in the same team as one of these premades. I'm also noticing a decrease in people queue'ing up for warzones due to the premades, leading to longer queue times for me.

 

My suggestion: Create 3 warzone tiers instead of the current 2. One tier as it is now but that allows a max of 2 players to queue together, and which rewards the normal warzone commendations. A second tier for small groups of 2-4 players that rewards a mix of warzone and ranked warzone commendations, and finally the ranked warzones for full teams of 8 as it is now.

Then not to be rude, but you really can't complain about anything. You don't have the time to see how common/uncommon a problem is. It's just as likely bad luck has caused your 30 minutes a day to be almost all smashed-by-WH-premade matches, while 80% of the time PvP is normal and almost "balanced." (There can never be true balance until everyone's stats and class are the same).

 

More to the point, and I'm sure this will come off as rude, but you personally don't have the time to play an MMO. It sucks, and I think not having the time for an MMO would be terrible, but as you've described (being only 30 minutes at a time) you simply do not have enough time. 30 minutes is enough for 2 WZ's if they are back to back, but more than likely it's 1 wz and 5-10 minutes waiting. 30 minutes is barely enough time to do a daily run in the Black Hole or Illum, without doing the heroics. 30 minutes isn't even enough time to do most flashpoints.

 

Oh, so casual players with RL jobs and responsibilities need not play...MMOs are only for the unmarried, unemployed, and unencumbered who can devote 22 hours out of the day for gaming?

 

Got it.

 

Seems to me that this attitude might be at the heart of the whole PUG vs. Premade issue.

Edited November 5, 2012 by jprife

The only way to solve this problem if it is a problem yet is not allow group queuing into the normal pvp queue. I doubt it BW/EA will do any thing about it unless their statistics show a decline in pvp participation due to premades in the normal warzone queue, which will affect their profits. It's that simple.

 

Now if premades want to rolfstomp players how about casual players just bot like wow. It's not like BW/EA will ban you considering their financial state. That's why in WoW your starting to see the normal queue full of bots.Both EA and Activision are between a rock and a hard place.

Edited November 5, 2012 by Knockerz

Oh, so casual players with RL jobs and responsibilities need not play...MMOs are only for the unmarried, unemployed, and unencumbered who can devote 22 hours out of the day for gaming?

 

Got it.

 

Seems to me that this attitude might be at the heart of the whole PUG vs. Premade issue.

 

That was an extreme case. The person literally said they could only play 30 minutes a day. At 30 minutes a day, I'm not even sure how they hit 50 (unless it took them 6 months). So yes, someone who only has 30 minutes a day really can't judge a state of a game.

 

Even a modest 1 hour a day is a better judge, and is more than enough to step into a guild, find some friends, etc...

During peak work times, I'm often only really there for 2 hours max a day, if I don't play one of my other games (I even have a few casual games, for when I don't feel like serious pvp...)

Where I take issue, is the concept of a Solo-queue only bracket. Matchmaking good, gear gap bad. Reducing the amount of options someone has to play BAD. Atm 1-4 players (solo or premade) can queue play in non-ranked, meaning shorter queue times for all. Split queue's with a restricter of solo -or- team is bad.

 

<.< that make sense?

No it doens't make sense at all because you have no understanding of how the queues are formed programatically and are just assuming you do.

Now, the solo-only queue option is exclusive. A game mechanic prohibits people from playing with their friends (except by dumb luck of landing on the same team.)

 

A THIRD queue for solo-players can only BENEFIT the POOL of PVP players.

 

Currently you have new 50'es who join a WZ, get smashed by a premade, never to return to PVP again due to a REALLY BAD experience that was NO FUN.

 

By a solo-only queue you get ppl who still enjoy PVP, and ALSO can join the premade queue as they decide to run their own premades later on.

 

CURRENT SYSTEM DISCOURAGES NEW PLAYERS FROM JOINING!

 

(I REALLY wish the devs would come with a statement on the issue)

Edited November 5, 2012 by Veniras

Currently you have new 50'es who join a WZ, get smashed by a premade, never to return to PVP again due to a REALLY BAD experience that was NO FUN.

 

So, why did they get smashed?

 

Was it because they ran into a premade or was it because they decided to go all Rambo and charge into a 2 on 1 fight in full recruit because they could do it in the 11-49 bracket and win?

 

Or have they simply never PvPed before, got the recruit gear, and jumped in expecting to be competitive only to find out that they aren't and got their feelings hurt?

 

In either case, the exact same thing could have happened in PUG WZ.

 

A guildie of mine is a perfect example of it.

 

He had PvPed very little in the 11-49 bracket and jumped head long into the 50 in full recruit gear playing a Shadow. Instead of playing smart he decided to go out solo hunting and got lit up, and killed, by everything he came across.

 

Afterwords, he was complaining and blaming the premade that was in the WZ for ruining his fun. However, after talking to him, it became clear that what ruined his fun, was that he had no idea of how to actually participate in the 50 PvP bracket.

So, why did they get smashed?

 

Was it because they ran into a premade or was it because they decided to go all Rambo and charge into a 2 on 1 fight in full recruit because they could do it in the 11-49 bracket and win?

 

Nice try at deflection.

 

OFC they will not enjoy being smashed by more experienced players. But being ANNIHILATED and possibly spawncamped by an efficient premade is EVEN LESS fun.

 

It is usually not much fun going up against a better geared team, but going up against a better geared premade is EVEN LESS fun.

 

Premades vs pugs are a major reason for putting people off PVP.

I can speak about my own experience as someone who had never done pvp outside this game, and has only started pvping recently (after levelling several 50s, I thought I'd give it a try). I will say upfront I'm not a great player and need much improving with skill and situational awareness, however as a healer I've had fun and seen myself doing pretty decent numbers for a mostly recruit geared char. However, when I find myself in a group against a premade it takes all I have not to quit (I don't like leaving wzs). I usually last about 15 secs alive and it's like stun-stun-dead. It makes me consider whether I'm really wasting my time trying to get BM gear, since I will never, ever, be able to compete with this kind of players. So yes, it is really disheartening and maybe that is the way it should be, but it sure doesn't make new or undergeared players want to persevere.

I can speak about my own experience as someone who had never done pvp outside this game, and has only started pvping recently (after levelling several 50s, I thought I'd give it a try). I will say upfront I'm not a great player and need much improving with skill and situational awareness, however as a healer I've had fun and seen myself doing pretty decent numbers for a mostly recruit geared char. However, when I find myself in a group against a premade it takes all I have not to quit (I don't like leaving wzs). I usually last about 15 secs alive and it's like stun-stun-dead. It makes me consider whether I'm really wasting my time trying to get BM gear, since I will never, ever, be able to compete with this kind of players. So yes, it is really disheartening and maybe that is the way it should be, but it sure doesn't make new or undergeared players want to persevere.

 

About to head to work so I'll reply to the other's before you later (Oh noes, Doom has a job? No way, he's a no-lifing premader with over 9000! hours a week to play)

 

Sorry, that wasn't directed at you.

 

Any way, I fully understand being smashed as a healer sucks. Done the grind on 2 healers now, eating stuns, sentinels, and every FF on the board.

 

I encourage you to keep at it though. I'm not sure your time constraints, but as a healer getting into a fairly decent guild should be easy. They always need more healers. You've been on the receiving end of a good team, and I think you'd really benefit from seeing a good team protect you. Guards, taunts, peels... ah, it makes a healer cry with joy.

 

I see you where I was awhile ago. Stuck on the cusp of carefree scrub life and true pvp. Keep at it, find yourself a team and a mentor, and may the force be with you =P

@Little _Dorrit.

The first experience that you are talking about is the correct one (doing heals and having fun). The second type (dead in 15 seconds) isn't intended and should be greatly improved by what Doom is suggesting (guards/peels). Question is, should you be forced to make sure you get guard/peel, prior to signing up for the war zones, in order to avoid the second experience, or not?

Maybe an "If you tick that box you might have an unpleasant experience" tool-tip should accompany the solo queue button . Should be easy enough to program in .

The only reason premade runners constantly object us PUGs from getting a PVP queue for ourselves is that they are afraid of losing thier fun of easy kills. We PUGs who are tired of being cannonfodder for overpowered Premade runners just want our part of fun with getting balanced fights.

 

If you premade runners are fancying a tough fights, you should be glad if we PUGs were in our own queue, since you should have to fight other Premade team, but instead you are all whining in here, objecting that we should get our own queue. That fact speaks for itself.

 

I rest my case.

The only reason premade runners constantly object us PUGs from getting a PVP queue for ourselves is that they are afraid of losing thier fun of easy kills. We PUGs who are tired of being cannonfodder for overpowered Premade runners just want our part of fun with getting balanced fights.

 

If you premade runners are fancying a tough fights, you should be glad if we PUGs were in our own queue, since you should have to fight other Premade team, but instead you are all whining in here, objecting that we should get our own queue. That fact speaks for itself.

 

I rest my case.

 

I think most people that run premades who do not have enough guildies online for rateds would more than welcome separate queues if they would guarantee that times would not dramatically increase without cross server queues.

 

Anyways I still enjoy the fact that all people that pug are undergeard and always face a premade that is full WH min/maxed blah blah blah.

...pick up a book by Scott Olson Card, titled "Ender's Game." I think after you read it, it will be quite the eye-opener.

 

Quick correction, to help anyone who looks it up: Orson Scott Card. And yes, it's very good. Read it.

The OP title should read "casual" gamers are forcing others into groups and VoIP due to the casuals horrible sense of awareness, lack of communication, playing map as their own solo death match game made just for them, casuals thinking total DPS means something if you lose, farming defensive points from the get go.....I could keep going but I'm sure you can see why people would like to group up together and maybe even enjoy killing some of the above mentioned folks.

 

Just saying, it's why I do premade

I think most people that run premades who do not have enough guildies online for rateds would more than welcome separate queues if they would guarantee that times would not dramatically increase without cross server queues.

 

Anyways I still enjoy the fact that all people that pug are undergeard and always face a premade that is full WH min/maxed blah blah blah.

 

Id say its more down to if you got a battery of healers or not. Theres many PUG who got excellent equipment, but lack support from healers since the group is randomly put.

It's very simple Samuel.

 

I have not asked you to do anything more than I have done.

 

You are asking me to do twice what you have done.

 

If you can not see the inequallity, then I have nothing else to say to you.

 

You've yet to actually say anything to me. Infact you've pretty much deflected, redirected and flat out avoided any questions or points I've made. But that's neither here nor there.

 

Incidently, the game doesn't need a third queue to be added... it simply needs the existing ones to be fixed. As long as groups continue to be allowed into the non-rated warzones premades will continue to avoid the rated warzones. Be it lazyness, a fear of actual competition, or just choosing the shortest path to the PVP brass ring this current layout accomplishes nothing. The game already has a seperate queue, incidently with better rewards, for group PVP content. Why not use it?

 

Oh right...

 

Counterpoint 1: We shouldn't be forced to do more then pugs to succeed.

Yet you are asking exactly that of pug players, cutting through the crap the arguement from you is that unless they find a PVP guild, which runs premades, they should expect to lose every single time or close enough to not to matter. Not an ideal situation for retaining subscribers or anything beyond a ankle deep wading pool of PVPers. (Feel free to explain to me these mysterious extra steps that I'm somehow missing.)

 

Counterpoint 2: The game is designed for group content, you should group to succeed.

The game also has a group rated warzones, yet "group content" PVPers don't seem to want to actually take part in group content.

 

Counterpoint 3: It will ruin PVP!

No.. other games that have done this have not been ruined, but infact have seen a marked improvement overall. Infact this is a system that the majority of games use, FPS's, MMO's and even sport's games have seperate areas for "ranked" and "unranked" play. What they also give you is the opportunity to find a place that suits your playstyle, don't want to face the clan you just got dropped in on in BF3.. find a different room that more to your liking.

 

Counterpoint 4: Its their own fault, they joined up late so they should suck it up and get better gear.

Interesting, but in the end a counterproductive mindset. You want more people to PVP... not less. Less just leads to longer queues, and a smaller population overall. There is logic in the game needing a learning curve, but when facing a full premade its not a curve.. its a brick wall.

 

Counterpoint 5: We don't have enough people for full rateds!

This one is a bit of a headscratcher for me. On one hand, in alot of cases its patently untrue. When you face premades of two groups from the same guild... it tends to make it look like yes, you actually do have enough players. But for arguements sakes, lets say you are short. Simple solution, what do raiding guilds do? Recruit more, gear them up, take the licks and improve. I see the current state of affairs with farming pugs as little different from a raiding guild complaining that BT SM should give them all the best gear while being doable by a full 8man group. The challenge in both situations seems practically identical.

 

Counterpoint 6: (More of an undercurrent then anything flat out said) I'm hardcore, only hardcore players should succeed. Casuals suck, **** them and anything they want, it dumbs down the game.

Here's a couple things about that... first, they pay the bills like you, and outnumber you by quite a bit. Driving them away hurts you, Bioware and the game. Secondly, the game doesn't need to be dumbed down to accomodate them, given a reasonable barrier of entry alot of them are quite willing to learn the ropes.

 

Counterpoint 7: We won't have fun!

Ok.. I'll give you this one, if fun is farming new players with no threat to yourself.. then yes, you would no longer have fun.

Edited November 5, 2012 by SammuelSK

Here are some personal statistics over the past 3 days from solo pvp'ing on the Republic side of the Progenitor server. I used Recruit gear only at the start to see the incentive a new player will have. To see if he will keep playing pvp:

 

Played 38 matches over the course of 3 days:

 

Won: 4. Lost: 34.

Number of times queued against a premade (3 or 4 people from the same guild): 23

Number of times queued with a premade (3 or 4 people from the same guild): 2

Number of times lost against the Republic: 0

Number of times lost against the Empire: 34

Number of times won against the Republic: 4

Number of times won against the Empire: 0

Number of times grouped without a healer: 17

Number of times faced an enemy group without a healer: 1

Number of times faced an exceptional enemy group (4 or more players with War Hero title or above): 10

Number of times queued with an exceptional group (4 or more players with War Hero or above): 1

Number of times queued with an inadequate group (4 or more players in Recruit): 10

Number of deaths: stopped counting.

 

As you can see from this limited survery, queuing solo meant losing the overwhelming majority of the games (a ratio of 4-34), almost all of them against the Empire. I've been in 4 true PuGvsPuG matches and incidentally every single one of them was Rep vs Rep we won.

 

23 times ouf of 38 (all in Rep vs Imp) we faced three or more players from the same guild. On my team this happened twice but we lost those matches as well due to the fact that:

 

10 times out of 38 we had 4 or more people (!!!) in Recruit gear (myself included of course), whereas 10 out of 38 times we faced enemy groups where 4 or more people were sporting War Hero, Conqueror, Warlord etc. titles.

 

This was further compounded by the fact that 17 (!) out of 38 times our team did not have a healer. Only once was I in a match where I could not find an enemy healer to mark.

 

I did not exactly count how many times our group was utterly annihilated (0-6 huttball, 100-0% novare etc.) but there were a lot of instances where we could not hold a single node in Civil War. Coordination was ok, we always discussed tactics, 9 out of 10 times people called out inc but the general lack of healers AND the overall gear advantage enjoyed by the enemies AND the fact that 23 matches had 3 or 4 people from the same guild made sure that no amount of coordination would make a difference.

 

Look at the numbers and tell me why a new lvl50 would bother to play pvp again after this?

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

 

Facing premades more than half the time (23/38) was part of the reason we kept losing but not the only part. The drastic lack of healers wasn't helping either. And the fact that in almost every 3rd match or so we had 4 people in Recruit.

 

I haven't tried pvp as an Imperial yet. I'm curious to do some statistics when I hit 50 to see if it's easier to level up somewhat as an Imperial.

 

I've seen many opinions by many people (some say it's fine, the majority call for changes) but I think there is something very wrong with pvp if solo queuing means autoloss.

 

I could not agree more my friend. The last time I posted something like this I got so many people telling me I was crap and to learn the game and to stop complaining about the situation. But what you are saying is true. I always queue solo. I've got a balance sage at valour 52 with 3 pieces of battlemaster (the rest is recruit). Once I finished a wz second! Normally I am second from the bottom or even bottom. I've watched in horror sometimes as my Sage gets pulled to pieces in seconds, I can't fight back and once I've used my stun break I just get stunned anther two or three times for good measure. By then I'm dead. How the hell can you learn to play this game? I see a war hero equipped operative coming my way (or sneaking up on me usually) and before I even engage them I know it's over. I'm struggling to get three medals sometimes. I was going to stay with it telling myself that it would get better the longer and harder I tried but I'm not enjoying entering a pvp arena for the amusement of a premade in full WH gear. And my level 52 valour rating bears no reflection on my pvp ability. I'm at 52 by a win to lose ratio of 1:10. I've never completed the weekly pvp either and still regard myself as a rookie. I am very close to calling time on level 50pvp for good.