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100 try-hard games per server - Conclusions on each server and recommendations.


Ttoilleekul

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So, something I have heard quite often in my time is conjecture about which server has the highest average skill level, and hence which server is the easiest / hardest to play on. People have their opinions, and so do I, but I thought it might be cool to actually put this to the test.

 

So what I decided to do a while back was 100 solo try-hard games per server. At the end of each effort I will post the stats for that server, and my personal experience of it. If one server truly is stronger than the others, or if one server is weaker than the others, it should show in the stats. Granted I can't play into the true peak hours on US servers without staying up later than I wish to. But I can play into the later afternoon / early evening (Eastern seaboard time) which is close enough to get a good picture of the server. Also, now, with so many Galactic Seasons players (some of which are trying hard, I don't think peak and off peak really make much difference any more.

 

So here are the stats for Darth Malgus.

Malgus Overall Stats

Malgus Starguard Strike Stats

Malgus Flashfire Scout Stats

Malgus Quarrel Gunship Stats

Malgus Spearpoint Tensor Scout stats

Malgus Rampart Bomber stats

 

Conclusions on Darth Malgus

My take on Malgus. DM is where I have spent by far the most of my GSF career. For the sake of this test I started a new toon that was not obviously me, although that never stops determined people working it out. Malgus is quite a difficult server to play on, and I highly doubt it will be my recommendation for a fresh newbie who wants the easiest server to play on while they get a hang of things. Malgus has a good number top tier pilots floating around, and a profusion of capable mid tier pilots who can pull big numbers in the right match. For a capable pilot looking for a challenge, I would say Malgus suits. IF you become known there, which can take only a few matches if you play well, people will make a point of coming after you in mobs. Malgus tends to get a lot of Bomber spams, especially in Domination, so knowing how to deal with multiple bomber is essential for anyone wanting to succeed. As you can see from the stats, a Gunship works really well here in TDM. I didn't encounter too many premades., and the ones I did encounter were not made of 4 top pilots.

 

 

Stats for Satele Shan

Satele Shan Overall Stats

Satele Shan Pike Stats

Satele Shan Flashfire Stats

Satele Shan Quarrel Stats

Satele Shan Starguard stats

 

Conclusions on Satele Shan

I feel that Satele Shan is easier than DM or SF. I haven't done the SF 100 game challenge yet, but I have played a couple thousand games there. SS is easier, at least for the times that I played there. Possibly it may get harder when I am in bed, I can't comment on that. But the times that I play on SS are the same times that I play on SF, so the direct comparison is still there. Time slot for time slot. Compared to Malgus, the overall win ratio is 2% lower than Malgus, but wins comes down to luck of the draw to an extent. Certainly when its within a few percent anyway. Average Damage and Average kills are higher and I think this reflects the average skill of the server being a little lower. In 100 games I didn't come across one Ace level player, that I could tell, and I only saw a smattering of strong veterans. Where as seeing another Ace or multiple strong vets is common place on Malgus, even during off peak hours. I also saw less "themes." What I mean by this is SF and DM players know how to win matches even if they are not highly skilled. Such as going bomber spam in Domination or Bomber GS balls in TDM. I saw very little of this (you can see this in how much the Pike got flown -not much!) and more people just flying what they like rather than adapting to win the game. There also seemed to be less tight games that could've gone either way, and less games I was pushed hard to win. The games I lost were just those that were not viable wins because my team fed too hard or didn't want to stay on nodes. At least this is true for my skill levels, someone better could have won more. I would recommend SS for anyone new looking for an easier time while they get to grips with things. As far as focus is concerned, I was literally left alone until the last 15 games. Up until that point I was having things all my own way, totally free to freecast or go where ever I wanted. Somewhere around game 85 or so, people started to coordinate in coming after me, in a fashion I am much more used to seeing on DM, and then I had a bunch of matches where I had to evade a lot because of it. Considering part of this test is to push hard enough so that the server will focus me, I'm surprised it took so long. On Malgus, if I start a new toon that is not obviously me, I can usually get hard to moderate focus in 2-3 games. Sometimes even in the 1st game. I think this also plays well for newbies, because you are unlikely to draw focus at all, if it took that long for me to draw it. If you're getting better and becoming confident in your abilities and are looking for a challenge, I would say move on from SS as your main server.

 

 

Stats for Starforge

Starforge Overall stats

Starforge Starguard Stats

Starforge Flashfire Stats

Starforge Quarrel Stats

 

Conclusions on Starforge

There are distinct similarities between US servers and EU servers. I'll elaborate more in my final conclusions, but suffice to say SF feels a lot like SS, just with more top tier players around. Its the prevalence of better players in higher numbers that makes SF the "better server" of the two. Not the average skill level of the masses. Once again SF took a long time to start focusing me, just like SS. The majority of my time on SF, by a vast amount, has been spent carrying the SRW tag. That tag still holds weight on SF, and hence draws focus. So before doing this challenge, my perspective on SF was a bit skewed. That is to say, playing as SRW will give you a false read on the server (if you don't believe me put "-srw" on the end of one of your toons and go fly :) ) So for this effort my toon needed to be non-srw and non-Luc Nodaro. I do have toons that fit those requirements on SF, but I never really went try-hard with them, and they predate my current skill level. So, flying as "Capra" for this test I learned some things about SF. Namely, US players do not focus down a new name who flies to a high level anywhere near as quickly as EU players do. I was well past game 60 before I had to deal with angry players trying to shut me down. Of course Galactic seasons has changed all of this, and so the nature of each server is less profound I think. But I do believe this trend exists between the two continents. SF is still the most populated GSF server (though only marginally more than DM) and as a result if you find a time when enough other top players are online, SF is as hard to cope with as any server can be. My comments about focus are no reflection on talent or skill. I believe the average skill of the masses (especially now that Seasons is a thing) to be no different from SF to DM. The difference is in the mentality. In regards top players, SF has as many as DM does, and a top player on SF will be a top player on any server. With seasons, its luck of the draw whether you encounter them in your match.

 

 

Stats for Tulak Horde

Tulak Horde Overall stats

Tulak Horde Flashfire Stats

Tulak Horde Quarrel Stats

Tulak Horde Starguard Stats

 

Conclusions on Tulak Horde

This is going to be a bit long, because Tulak is by far the most "interesting" server. Tulak is a server of two halves. Before I went there Invis had warned me that there are multiple premades which fly on Tulak, and in that sense it has more of a "premade mentality" than any other server. I knew one of these Tulak premades as they also frequent DM. After flying there, I can verify this is true. Not that I ever doubted Invis. The funny thing is, it really is a server of two halves. If you don't fly on Tulak during peak time, and hence avoid the premades, the overall quality of the server is among the lowest, if not the lowest of all, I think. I was at a 91% win ratio with 75k Av.Dmg before I found the premades, which was game 34. But when the premades arrive, it gets rough, and your hopes of winning if you're not on the same team as a premade are pretty low. The first night I found the premades, I lost 6 games on the trot. For the record, these premades are not of the Drakolich team, Chronos or SRW quality; the premades of the bygone era of super serious guild v guild GSF that existed pre5.5, and for a while after. They are not 4 super Aces with polished game play and out-standing individual skill. They also largely do not utilize Damage Overcharges. But they are very experienced and know how to win against whatever the regular queue throws at them. Like the other EU servers, Tulak players focused me right from the get go. I was drawing focused attention in game 2, but with very varying results. During the day, the efforts to focus me were non-consequential and ineffective. When the premades do it, it becomes a different kettle of fish, some of them shut me down quite effectively, others did not. In many games against premades, I still topped the board and in some didn't even die. If I was solo-queuing against Drakolich's team, there's no way I would top the board, let alone come out without dying. Overall I expected the win ratio to be much worse. Losing those 6 games on the trot made me think that all evenings against the premades would go the same way. But, this is where some peculiar quirks happened. One, the premades don't seem all that easy to find. Queuing in the evening doesn't mean you will find them. I queued some evenings hoping to find the premades, and didn't. Also with there being multiple premades, it means you stand a decent chance of being paired with one of those premades. And this happened. So when you end up with premade A + me, Vs premade B, that equals a win for me, as premade A has me on their side, so you end up becoming the deciding factor. And lastly there were also the horrible matchmaker goofs where there is only one premade queuing, and Matchmaker still puts me on their side. So a lot of things came together to make the 77% overall win ratio, and quite honestly it could easily have been 65% the way this server is. Where as the win ratio never felt likely to drop that low on any other server, it did feel distinctly possible here. Does this mean Tulak has the highest overall quality? Well, no. Certainly not during the day time hours it doesn't. You would find a better challenge on DM or SF at the same time. Without the premade losses, my win ratio might well have been 90% by game 100. I just never lost. But in the evening, when the premades are online, its more of a challenge yes. I still won't say it has the best quality at that hour, because those premades as I said are not made up of 4 super Aces. But it is definitely a challenge, and where as I won't return very often to Levi or SS, I will be coming back regularly to Tulak, at premade hour, for the challenge of it. Who would I recommend Tulak to? Anyone wanting a challenge, come at premade hour, or bring your premade here. Anyone wanting an easy time to learn without finding an Ace or many strong vets? Come during the day.

 

 

Stats for Leviathan

Leviathan Overall stats

Leviathan Quarrel stats

Leviathan Flashfire stats

Leviathan Starguard stats

 

Conclusions on Leviathan

Leviathan is an easy server to play on. Perhaps the easiest. I tried my best to find the best players on this server, but there is a distinct lack of them. Sorry, Levi, I don't mean this in any disrespectful way. There is just a lack of high level play on this server. Other than completing Galactic Seasons Starfighter Weekly Objective and GSF weekly, I won't be coming back here much. Something tells me most of Levi will be quite happy about that. I was accused of cheating three times on this server in my 100 games. One guy even suggested his team Self destruct when they see me targeting them, as the result would be the same. At one point I was so bored some of my GSF friends actually came over to Levi while I was playing to spice up the queue. I didn't care about losing matches from my overall win ratio at this point, I just wanted to make a fun game. And we did, we had several fun games in a row, of which I lost two. It speaks volumes that one of those friends who came over to spice up the queue is a Scout Ace who is actually french, but mains DM because of the low quality of Levi. With the overall win ratio still coming out at 82% despite those losses, it's safe to say it would have been a whopping 84% if my mates didn't come into the queue on that night. Like DM and Tulak, Levi did try to focus me very early on, but, they just aren't very good at it. I saw only a handful of names that were any good over the 100 games. Five or so. Which quite possibly could have been less than five people, assuming people were alting. Though you can generally tell playing style, so I think it was at least three "good players" on Levi. One particularly stood out. A certain fella who I had many games against, and who gave me some fun interesting games. This particular person, is good enough that I would imagine he owns the server when I am not there, and personally, I feel he is too good for Levi and should branch out, if he isn't already. I fully recommend Levi for new or low skill players wanting an easy time, looking to avoid the presence of virtually any good players while they learn to improve. Just don't use Leviathan as a metric for your skill. Topping the board there does not mean you will top the board on DM, SF or Tulak at peak hours. But it is a very safe environment to improve your skills.

 

 

Overall Conclusions

So, 500 games. All done. Let me start first by saying what I was always told, from my formative early months in GSF right through to my current level. On Malgus, my home server, where I have spent the vast majority of my flight hours, there is a general popular opinion that Malgus is the hardest server to play on. That it has the highest average skill level. This is not talking about Ace level players. An Ace is an Ace anywhere. The belief here is the skill of the average player is higher on Malgus. So, is it true? Well, I never really bought into this belief. I believed it when I was new, because everyone told me the same thing. But when I started to play on Starforge a couple of years ago, I didn't find it was "easier" there. As i was invited to SRW early on, and I ran with the "-srw" tag when I was half the pilot I am now, I personally felt like I wasn't having an easy time at all on Starforge, due to the attention that the "-srw" tag brings with it over there. This of course was before Galactic Seasons when most Starforge players knew what SRW stood for and why you needed to be careful (punish) an SRW player. So, yeah, I generally didn't buy into this idea that US servers were the "easy" servers and that Malgus was the kingpin server. Also I kind of strongly suspected that Starforge players would have you believe that SF is the Kingpin server. So, is there a top server? A single server that is the hardest to fly on because of the overall average talent being higher? No, I don't think so. Again, this is the age of Galactic Seasons, so, if there was a standout server before, maybe there isn't now, due to the influx of players. My take, after this experiment, is that the skill of the average players, the skill of the general masses, differs extremely little from one server to the next. If you have read this far, you know by now that I strongly believe there is a difference in mentality from EU servers to US servers. Namely, EU players consider it their duty to try to focus down a Strong player. But, this happens with varying results. To be quite honest with you, Malgus is the best at doing this. Tulak and Levi, not so much. They try to focus you, but they just end up adding to your scoreline, for the most part. And let me be clear again here, focus does not equate to quality. For example, one game on Tulak, a Denon, despite my team entirely occupying the bottom half of the table, with not a single positive KDR among them, we pulled off the win, because I was able to exploit the other team's determined efforts to focus me by drawing them away from the nodes so my team could cap and win it. So the desire to focus strong players that exists in EU servers, is a mentality not a statement of quality. However, I could certainly imagine an average US based player coming to DM and finding the focus hard to deal with, and that maybe this adds to the perception of DM being the "better" server. Win ratios varied little. In descending order we ended up with Levi 82%, DM 81%, SF 80%, SS 79%, Tulak 77%. These differences are minor at best. Luck of the draw certainly could have made any one of these results 2-3% higher or lower. That's just how matchmaker works, even when you can carry as many games as I do. (Sorry not bragging, just what it is). If one server really stood out as Kingpin server, surely we should have seen it in the stats, with that server having the lowest win ratio due to being the most competitive server, and the difference being more than just a few percent. So, no, I don't think any server is a clear "better" or "best" server. I do however think that one server can be awarded "easiest" server. If you've read this far then you already second guessed that this server is Leviathan. But it only narrowly won (lost) this accolade. Tulak, during the day, is every bit as easy. Tulak avoids getting the wooden spoon though because of the prevalence of premades at peak hours. SS again is very easy to play on. The reason being most strong US based players frequent SF instead. However, even though I can't play into the late evening on SS, I do know a number of Strong and Ace level US players that put in time on SS as well, so for that reason it avoided the wooden spoon award. While the win ratios didn't vary much, the stats did show higher KDRs, higher Av.Dmg, and higher Av.kills on those three "easier servers," which in my mind testifies to them being easier. Though not enough that this made a big difference to the win ratios. So, anyway, I think this covers everything? The differences between the servers as far as I could tell in this test. Of course I have still spent much more time on DM and SF, where as I only started on SS, Tulak and Levi for this experiment. So I am sure resident players of those servers might have their own views. I will keep playing on all servers, now that I have toons there. But SS and Levi will occupy the least of my time. I will definitely be going back to Tulak when I am in the mood to go solo against a premade for the sheer fun of it. I think an appropriate final closing comment would be, the hardest / best server to play on would be the one that has the most Ace and Strong vet level players on it, at that moment in time. Which will usually be SF or DM, with Tulak getting honorable mention. Here's me wishing that we had one big server merge, so that everyone played on the same server, so that all the Aces and vets would be on one server at the same time. Boy, would that make for some epic games. But quite often what's happening is that Ace X is on server A, Ace Y is on server B, and Ace Z is on server C. Matches and times when a big volume of Aces and vets all queue on one server, are not that common. But when it does happen, man, is it epic.

Edited by Ttoilleekul
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IF you become known there, which can take only a few matches if you play well, people will make a point of coming after you in mobs.

 

Is this what has been happening to me of late? Preface, I do not consider myself to be a top pilot, but I have had some really good matches where I have come out on top or near the top of the kill count and damage numbers.

 

Due to GS I have dabbled with GSF more and have become fairly good with a particular ship. I always fly this one ship in every match and I always do GSF with the same characters. I have been doing this on Star Forge, my home server, Satele Shan, and Darth Malgus. Recently on DM every time I get close to the opposing team, more so in death matches rather than domination, I get mobbed by two, three, sometimes four ships all focusing me. Often it is the same group of pilots and they will be the only ones who kill me during the match.

 

Have I actually moved into the territory of "good enough to be a threat" or am I just the unlucky fodder for some kill counts? Maybe I will make some new characters for GSF and see if that changes.

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Is this what has been happening to me of late? Preface, I do not consider myself to be a top pilot, but I have had some really good matches where I have come out on top or near the top of the kill count and damage numbers.

 

Due to GS I have dabbled with GSF more and have become fairly good with a particular ship. I always fly this one ship in every match and I always do GSF with the same characters. I have been doing this on Star Forge, my home server, Satele Shan, and Darth Malgus. Recently on DM every time I get close to the opposing team, more so in death matches rather than domination, I get mobbed by two, three, sometimes four ships all focusing me. Often it is the same group of pilots and they will be the only ones who kill me during the match.

 

Have I actually moved into the territory of "good enough to be a threat" or am I just the unlucky fodder for some kill counts? Maybe I will make some new characters for GSF and see if that changes.

 

Its not impossible. You do not have to be an Ace to draw focus. Playing on the same toons, and consistently stringing together good results, is enough to get the attention of regulars. If you are at the top frequently, or thereabouts, yes, it will garner the attention from others. I can't give you a definite answer without seeing the results you speak of, but its a possibility. Also consider how much you are bringing the focus on yourself. You can be a nobody, but if you fly aggressively into the enemy territory, half of them will go after you.

 

You will know you are getting focused by two things. 1) If you are on a bad team, there's always 2-5 of them following you wherever you go. Most people on a bad team will think they are being focused, but they are just careless in how they fly. There is a difference. 2) People go out of their way to chase you down. Excessively so.

 

You reach a point where no one needs to tell you you're being focused and now a recognized threat, because you just know you're dealing with more attention than the average pilot, and you know that if you didn't have that focus you would be at the top of the board. When the focus is that blatant, when you're trying to retreat and find safety, but they still keep coming, you don't need me to verify it for you.

Edited by Ttoilleekul
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I’ve actually been playing on Malgus (this week) and SS and SF (my usual server) to get extra GS done. My ping to the US severs is around 220ms and normal ping to DM is 310ms. But with some help from the guys at WTFast, I’ve been able to get my ping on DM down to 265ms. Which makes GSF and pvp finally viable to play there.

 

My experiences so far on DM is the play quality is better and the match making seems better on DM compared to SS or SF. So for me, it’s actually felt easier to learn GSF on DM because games are more evenly matched and it gives you some breathing space. Where as SS and SF always have premades of top tier aces against total noob teams and you learn nothing getting farmed that way.

Edited by TrixxieTriss
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I’ve actually been playing on Malgus (this week) and SS and SF (my usual server) to get extra GS done. My ping to the US severs is around 220ms and normal ping to DM is 310ms. But with some help from the guys at WTFast, I’ve been able to get my ping on DM down to 265ms. Which makes GSF and pvp finally viable to play there.

 

My experiences so far on DM is the play quality is better and the match making seems better on DM compared to SS or SF. So for me, it’s actually felt easier to learn GSF on DM because games are more evenly matched and it gives you some breathing space. Where as SS and SF always have premades of top tier aces against total noob teams and you learn nothing getting farmed that way.

 

My goodness I don't know how you play with that Ping! I get grumpy if mine goes over 120ms!

 

What time are you playing on US servers? I don't usually encounter premades of Aces there either. I mean, it can and has happened for me on any server, but I know the SF premades usually come online later in the evening.

Edited by Ttoilleekul
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This ought to be a interesting read to follow,

Glad you mentioned the times you're able to do this in, for me the time of day does make a difference, not something to do with skill levels , but, more of the connection quality. , My score board reflects that, seen at the end of the matches.

 

particular the hit percentage reflects it, not just damage and kills/assist

 

I just read the part someone mentioned being focused on, I've (that I can recall) only been focused on, twice in the past year, just recently with a newer character (not quite a month ago). Not sure if it was a case someone get spanked by me and they got their main type of scenario thing, I just recall the previous games I pretty much dominated, A rare thing for me indeed, I'm just not that good, but it was that rare moment I carried the team .

no point getting into details about that, just thought I'd mention it has happened to me, even tho they kept me from being on top of the score board I still felt honored, That I had been focused on, and was recognized as a threat to their team.

 

years ago I did just play with one character, but , since my latest return, now all my characters fly, but, again, I'm not hard to identify as the same player. Since all my characters have 2 names, and the second name is the same on all of them. It's different depending which account I play on (and server), but still the same ;)

 

be interesting to see how long it takes to get 100 matches on some servers, although there has been a increase in GTF with the newer conquest, maybe not, I had played on the German server for over a year once, and during that time only was able to get in a GTF match twice, A few months ago, for nostalgia reason hopped over there with a new character, and no problem getting my introduction and a couple more battles in.

 

so looking forward to what your result will read

 

 

Good Luck,

 

Now I might get a chance to see what the back on my ship looks like, in one of your videos :DWhen you get to the server I play on

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I’ve actually been playing on Malgus (this week) and SS and SF (my usual server) to get extra GS done. My ping to the US severs is around 220ms and normal ping to DM is 310ms. But with some help from the guys at WTFast, I’ve been able to get my ping on DM down to 265ms. Which makes GSF and pvp finally viable to play there.

 

My experiences so far on DM is the play quality is better and the match making seems better on DM compared to SS or SF. So for me, it’s actually felt easier to learn GSF on DM because games are more evenly matched and it gives you some breathing space. Where as SS and SF always have premades of top tier aces against total noob teams and you learn nothing getting farmed that way.

 

I've play on DM myself (for GS) and I agree, the match quality overall does seem better. On SF, which is my main, and where I play my alt accs for CQ, I find the quality, and lop-sidedness of the matches horrendous. There should be a queue for single and one for groups, it's the only way to 'hopefully' even things out. I know people will rally against this, as it means their premade might not be able to 'dominate' anymore....

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be interesting to see how long it takes to get 100 matches on some servers

 

Irrespective of some servers being more populated than others, its takes a while to do 100 games. I don't exclusively play that toon, and I am doing two try-hard toons at the same times. So the SS effort was started as the DM effort reached 80 games. And now that the SS effort has reached 80 games I have started another one. It's quite demanding going full try-hard, and frustrating when you lose. I could get the 100 games done a lot quicker, but because of that mental demand, its nice to kick back play different toons and not care so much if you lose. I think its roughly taking me 3-4 weeks to get one done.

Edited by Ttoilleekul
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There should be a queue for single and one for groups, it's the only way to 'hopefully' even things out.

 

This has been raised before. Now let me clarify I am not a fan of persistent grouping for the sake of it. I prefer to go solo. I think matchmaker works better when you go solo. Actually, let me clarify that. Match maker works best when you have two groups in the queue, it usually seems to put them opposite each other. I am part of a Guild on Malgus which is an exclusive membership of top tier pilots, who group to counter other groups. Its the only time we ever group up. There is a chance of course that we group to counter another group, and because of the number of active games, we don't get matched against them. But so far, of the times we have tried to counter another group, we have by some significant margin mostly always been matched against them. So, matchmaker works well when it has two groups to play with, I think. But the problem, is it usually doesn't. It usually only has one premade which will steam roll everyone match after match. And that, I am not a fan of. I would get bored being in such a group. So in that sense, as I was trying to say before I digressed, matchmaker works better when people queue solo. One decent group throws it all out of wack, you need two.

 

But, getting to the point at hand, a separate group queue would never work. Even though I am an avid solo queuer, and I support people playing solo, it just would never work. The group queue would be dead, because people are not brave enough (with few exceptions) to keep queuing knowing they are going to be facing another premade. Especially if that premade they are going to face is good. My team recently grouped up to counter a very experienced well known premade. That premade then stopped queuing because they didn't want to risk losing to us. So the group queue, if it existed, would never get pops. Because you are quite right, most groups want an easy run, not a challenging threat. A group only queue would mean constant challenging threats, and hence the group only queue would be dead. Now, I know what you are gong to say, that's ideal. Means everyone would queue solo, right? Yeah, it would. Except SWTOR and by extension GSF is a group game, and Bioware want people to group up. In fairness to them, it is how the game is mean to be played. And the best games are with multiple groups queuing. So it would never work because Bioware would never do it, and if they did, people are not brave enough to risk a competitive queue like that. The days of guild vs guild super-serious highly competitive matches are gone. If you ever watch one of them from years ago on Youtube, they are brutal matches. These days people want an easy ride.

Edited by Ttoilleekul
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My goodness I don't know how you play with that Ping! I get grumpy if mine goes over 120ms!

 

What time are you playing on US servers? I don't usually encounter premades of Aces there either. I mean, it can and has happened for me on any server, but I know the SF premades usually come online later in the evening.

 

I miss my 20ms ping when we had Aussie servers :(

 

The ping isn’t “unplayable” in a casual environment. But much too high for me to play ranked in this game.

 

I play when I get a chance, so it can be anytime of the day as I’m semi retired. In Aussie east time zone I can be on from 9am to 2am AEST. I’m not 100% sure what that equates to for DM. I think the UK is 12 hours different to Sydney?

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I miss my 20ms ping when we had Aussie servers :(

 

The ping isn’t “unplayable” in a casual environment. But much too high for me to play ranked in this game.

 

I play when I get a chance, so it can be anytime of the day as I’m semi retired. In Aussie east time zone I can be on from 9am to 2am AEST. I’m not 100% sure what that equates to for DM. I think the UK is 12 hours different to Sydney?

 

Sidney is 9 hours ahead of London. Omegaheath / Optimus is from Oz, and he usually plays on SF for the peak hours, and then comes to DM in his evening time, at which point DM is just picking up.

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Sidney is 9 hours ahead of London. Omegaheath / Optimus is from Oz, and he usually plays on SF for the peak hours, and then comes to DM in his evening time, at which point DM is just picking up.

 

Do you know if he uses a gaming VPN too like WTFast? I’d be interested to know what his ping is to DM.

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. The group queue would be dead, because people are not brave enough (with few exceptions) to keep queuing knowing they are going to be facing another premade.

 

This is exactly why there has to be a group queue. Not to make group queue active, because we all know it won't be, but to get premades out of games. Premades are not good for GSF. People form them to ROFLSTOMP 50-2 / 1000 / 27 type games.

 

The occasional premade hero comes in claiming they want to play against other premades, they're trying to train steel against steel. But the reality is premades are just for rolling people, getting easy games and posting big stats.

 

What they should do is create a group queue, but allow people to queue with a friend for solo queue. But will EAware do it? No.

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This is exactly why there has to be a group queue. Not to make group queue active, because we all know it won't be, but to get premades out of games. Premades are not good for GSF. People form them to ROFLSTOMP 50-2 / 1000 / 27 type games.

 

The occasional premade hero comes in claiming they want to play against other premades, they're trying to train steel against steel. But the reality is premades are just for rolling people, getting easy games and posting big stats.

 

What they should do is create a group queue, but allow people to queue with a friend for solo queue. But will EAware do it? No.

 

The same thing for ground pvp. But you can’t get Bioware to listen.

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This is exactly why there has to be a group queue. Not to make group queue active, because we all know it won't be, but to get premades out of games. Premades are not good for GSF. People form them to ROFLSTOMP 50-2 / 1000 / 27 type games.

 

The occasional premade hero comes in claiming they want to play against other premades, they're trying to train steel against steel. But the reality is premades are just for rolling people, getting easy games and posting big stats.

 

What they should do is create a group queue, but allow people to queue with a friend for solo queue. But will EAware do it? No.

 

I'm not against it. I would even relish the idea of queuing with my team knowing / hoping we will get real match up. I would be in that group queue, you can count on it!

 

The devs want us to all group queue in the main queue. I feel like they would tell us, this is a group game, group up and stop moaning that solo players are getting stomped.

 

I'm with you all the way, but I guess we just know it would never happen.

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Premades are not good for GSF. People form them to ROFLSTOMP 50-2 / 1000 / 27 type games.

 

Do not generalize please. Yesterday there was a very good match on DM when 2 WD premades went at each other. Granted, not many guilds left nowadays able to field these numbers, but still.

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Do not generalize please. Yesterday there was a very good match on DM when 2 WD premades went at each other. Granted, not many guilds left nowadays able to field these numbers, but still.

 

I think on the whole he is right because the vast majority of premades are not in it for competitive matches. Those days of super serious guild vs guild matches are long gone. This is evidenced by the number of premades that stop queuing once they are sufficiently countered by another premade. Its a generalization and that means this doesn't go for all premades. It doesn't mean that your premade vs premade match was not great fun. I've been very open in the past that the best macthes I've ever played in have been premade vs premade. But even having that stance, I think he's right about most premades by far.

Edited by Ttoilleekul
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Do not generalize please. Yesterday there was a very good match on DM when 2 WD premades went at each other. Granted, not many guilds left nowadays able to field these numbers, but still.

 

The thing is, either way I am right.

 

If premades are just out to curbstomp, then they are bad for the game and should be removed (or quarantined).

 

If premades are honestly looking to play best v best, then they would welcome a queue that gives them that opportunity.

 

I know people want to play with their friends, and MMOs should encourage group activity. But given the realities on the ground, not every solution is ideal for everyone. A solo + 1 friend queue preserves an ability to play with someone, and yet reduces the negative experience of getting rolled by premades.

 

In fact, in theory it should result in better matches because those former premades are now in groups of two who may face each other.

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The thing is, either way I am right.

 

If premades are just out to curbstomp, then they are bad for the game and should be removed (or quarantined).

 

If premades are honestly looking to play best v best, then they would welcome a queue that gives them that opportunity.

 

I know people want to play with their friends, and MMOs should encourage group activity. But given the realities on the ground, not every solution is ideal for everyone. A solo + 1 friend queue preserves an ability to play with someone, and yet reduces the negative experience of getting rolled by premades.

 

In fact, in theory it should result in better matches because those former premades are now in groups of two who may face each other.

 

It won't help all that much even if you get your way on this.

 

The fundamental problem is in how the matchmaking algorithm works.

 

We don't know all that much about it. It's recycled from the ground game matchmaker, possibly with some modifications. It looks at requistion spent on ships active in your hangar (how geared are you), and at some stat reflecting experience such as games played per legacy or account.

 

Some things can also be inferred from observing how it makes matches if both skilled groups and skilled solo players are queued at the same time.

 

Possibly because the queue changes, and you can't predict if people will actually join matches that they queued for, the matchmaker seems to take groups (a solo player is a group of size one for a sorting algorithm), on an individual basis. In the sense that it makes a pick, assigns that pick, and then starts over. There doesn't appear to be any overall "memory" or sense of either the queue or of the teams. It's just instantaneous snapshots repeated multiple times. The result of this is that the matchmaker can take its rules for "best balance" and while following them make an 8 v 8 match where one team has a group of 4 aces, 3 aces queuing solo, and one noob against a team of 8 noobs, and by its metrics it did the "best possible" job of balancing the teams. It's only the state of the queue and the teams so far that get looked at while making a choice. Once a choice is made it is final. The result is horrendously poor team balance on a regular basis. In most matches, with the same information available to the matchmaker, a human could build much better balanced teams. What we get is not team balancing so much as semi-random blobs of skill on each team. Groups make the blobs bigger, but the lack of a sorting step after the containers that we call teams are full pretty much guarantees that team balance will be "lumpy" most of the time.

 

Really good sorting is not trivial to engineer. However, there are quick and dirty simple fixes that would produce better results than what we currently get. Well, simple computationally, may or may not be easy to integrate into the SWTOR engine without breaking multiple things.

 

Take the output of the current matchmaker, even if the balancing is rubbish. Put two teams worth of output into a temporary file. Now sort that pool so that the player gear*experience weighting is relatively even between teams. Then start the match. Erase the temporary sorting pool from server memory.

 

The sorting doesn't have to be fancy. Make two empty teams A and B. Sort the 16 to 24 players in the temporary pool by group weighting. Put the heaviest group in A. Then put the heaviest group from the list of unassigned groups into which ever team has the lightest weighting. Repeat until one of the teams is full. Put the rest if any, in the other team. Ideal balance? No. It should however prevent disastrous balancings where all the aces are on one team even though there's nothing in terms of grouping that prevents a more even distribution of skill.

 

Basically I'm proposing that the devs turn a one step process into a two step process (or two algorithm process, each step here actually has a lot of steps of its own).

 

Currently the one step is to sort the queue into teams

Step two, which I've wanted for a long time, is to then sort the teams into more balanced teams even if only quickly and crudely.

 

Unlikely to get any traction on this though unless someone can persuade the ground game population to get up in arms over improved matchmaking. Sounds like a tough project on the developer end, so they'd need to have high motivation in order to commit the resources to tackle this and make it work.

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It won't help all that much even if you get your way on this.

 

The fundamental problem is in how the matchmaking algorithm works.

 

tl;dr version: Quarantining premades won't fix GSF.

 

Yes, you're right, no single fix will magically solve all of GSF's problems. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't fix anything. Removing premades from the general queue will make the general queue better, and that makes GSF better.

 

The matchmaker's fundamental issues are just things we have to live with. The devs aren't going to re-engineer the matchmaker. The choice is not between a perfect fix and a small fix. It's between small fixes and nothing. Between those two, I choose small fixes.

Edited by sharpenedstick
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The thing is, either way I am right.

 

If premades are just out to curbstomp, then they are bad for the game and should be removed (or quarantined).

 

If premades are honestly looking to play best v best, then they would welcome a queue that gives them that opportunity.

 

I know people want to play with their friends, and MMOs should encourage group activity. But given the realities on the ground, not every solution is ideal for everyone. A solo + 1 friend queue preserves an ability to play with someone, and yet reduces the negative experience of getting rolled by premades.

 

In fact, in theory it should result in better matches because those former premades are now in groups of two who may face each other.

 

 

GSF was designed as a group game. Not built for solo. The tweeks they made in 5.5 made it more so a group game.

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