Having a bot or super low GS on your team DOES make it harder on players...how do you not see that? You are effectively 4.02 vs 5.0, which 90% of the time is a loss. Having a min. GS is going to make it easier for everyone. It is so cheap and easy to get to the 10k. IDK how people aren't at that level. You have to actively avoid it! (I think some of the ppl are actually trolls- there is one notorious grey wearing guy).
The direct fight on the bots has not done much at all. They are still here 1+ years later!
Very informative and well founded addition to the discussion. Please read up on how the matching system works before sprouting nonsense. Not to mention that newbies have the same right to team up as the BiS do. It changes nothing.
Making a solo queue and a premade queue while using the elo we have now would help alot.
Its really not so complicated.I have been pvping in mmos since Ultima online.All I do pretty much is play Domintation matches in neverwinter.
everyone is over complicating everything.
Premades(of coarse) and elits will play the Premade queue.
Noobs and casual gamers will play the Solo queue.If a elit plays the solo queue with the elo an elit should be added to the other team.
plus every match will be random and have more of a chance of being balanced compared to premades or partial premades vs pug.
.
With the elo system the solo queue will be evened out alot.
plus the Solo queue will end the uneven premade vs pug mismatch that has been going on and is making domination matches unbalanced and boring.
Its really an easy fix.
How is it you need this explained in detail?
Its very simple.
Stop over thinking everything.
@ zouldryn:
It still won't fix the problem. You're just denying lower rated people the ability to team up together since they'll face the 20K roflstompers that way. And that's not fair. If you added a way to split the scrubs and elites from those queues, I could live with the idea, but you can't go giving someone more game options simply because he's got his r10 and perfects from bots and the newbie cannot.
It will work
with a premade queue the premades wont be bored fighting solo queuers all the time.
They will always face a premade. Add the elo to that and it should be more balanced.
The elo system probably wont have to work as hard either.
so they can crank it up and matches will pop faster with better balanced teams.
Whats making the elo system work so hard is the premades and pugs.
separate them and you should be able to crank up the elo system.
No matter how you look at it separating the queues will make the matchmaking system more balanced.
Plus should make the elo system work more efficiently.so they can crank it up with less wait times.
This is not the issue. The issue is eliminating people who don't really want to PvP. Bots and people who campfire just for the AD on their low GS alts.
They don't even try to play. They ruin the experience for the other nine people in the match with their selfishness or ignorance.
Comparatively speaking for PvE is it ok to enter a skirmish with 4-6k GS and let people carry you while you campfire for 1000 AD?
Yes lopsided matches will happen, but let's take some measures to try and make it a better experience for those that want to PLAY.
This is exactly the issue I am talking about.
@zouldryn having solo que and premade que will not help with this.
Then what would you say to a new group of lvl60s, barely in their 10Ks, that made some friends along the way and want to try out PvP together? "Screw you, get some decent -define decent, but that's another story- gear before you PvP. Go try soloing first."? There won't ever be a premade for them to face if we do what you suggest, so there's little alternative but to solo. A bit harsh, don't you think? It's not their fault there's 20k GS people out there, also looking for competition.
Again, if the bots hadn't made it easy to create such a huge gap between the 2 extreme ends, I would have no objection to separate queues, 13-14-15k against 15-15.5ks wouldn't be such a big issue. But a 20k solo player can win the match by themselves for any 10-11k geared team. And he won't have any fun doing do. At least I wouldn't.
If the elo system could be turned up without wait times affected wouldn't that make the new players and elite players more likely to be grouped up more often than it is now?
Plus if a elite player joined a solo match wouldn't the elo try to put another elite on the other team.
The main problem with the elo system is it can hardly be used because of the wait times so they have it turned so far down we cant hardly tell the difference.
If separating the queues frees up the elo system so it can be turned up then new 9k-10k pvpers wouldnt see a 20k in a match and elit 20k players wont see 9k-10k in their matches either.
It sure does. And so far Cryptic's fight against the bots have been an abysmal attempt at best, there's no denying it. But that's where the fight must be fought. Not inside player's activities. I had an 8k GS as I turned 60 and quickly turned 10k+ after Sharandar. But it won't change the real problem. The real problem is that scrubs and elites see too much of eachother.
Never mind a stupid bot. There's tons of software/plugins available to fight those that would not affect general gameplay. The software I run on my game server with 500 users hasn't left a bot alive for more than 1 hour. And the first month in open beta, I openly let them try anything they could get their hands on. If an amateur like me can accomplish that much, I don't see how Cryptic -with all the might of one of the largest MMO publishers in the world backing them up- fails at this task.
@ zouldryn:
It still won't fix the problem. You're just denying lower rated people the ability to team up together since they'll face the 20K roflstompers that way. And that's not fair. If you added a way to split the scrubs and elites from those queues, I could live with the idea, but you can't go giving someone more game options simply because he's got his r10 and perfects from bots and the newbie cannot.
Had the bots not ruined the game this much -and by the sound of it they had a lot less impact on UO than they have here- and if the gap between the people wasn't as huge as it is now, your idea would be fine. Alas, it's not that easy.
not everybody with perfects/rank10, got them with bots, most of them, are players that played this game for very long....
I refuse to believe all those people farmed every last bit of enchantment for 8 r10s, 2 perfects and 3+ lvl100 artifacts for both PvP and PvE, some even on multiple characters. The drop rate simply isn't sufficient enough for a normal player to collect that many RP. Nor were they intended to, I think.
Not saying I blame them from taking such advantage, although I never would, but it did create a HUGE gap between those players and people who started say.. 2 weeks ago. And now we're here, trying to clean up this mess.
You know people can swipe the credit card and obtain all this in about 1 hour worth of work right?
This gap mechanism is official. PWI allows you to pay and skip farming for enchants and refine materials altogether.
So there isn't any "mess". This is how PWI made their game.
It would be easy to "fix" by making any combat-related item obtainable through farming alone and put out ZAX completely out if its misery so people would not be able to make AD by buying it with money, they would have to get AD in the game alone, by farming.
Yet we don't see this happening I wonder why.
Now, improving PvP:
Not possible.
- Huge gap in power between players
- Small player pool to draw from that puts everybody together with everybody else
- pretty dumb matchmaking
- Not enough interest in PvP, only an extremely small (not even 50) community
I'd say these would take years to fix. Years that a F2P MMO with a small team, mostly dedicated to PvE, don't really have.
Making a solo queue and a premade queue while using the elo we have now would help alot.
Its really not so complicated.I have been pvping in mmos since Ultima online.All I do pretty much is play Domintation matches in neverwinter.
everyone is over complicating everything.
Premades(of coarse) and elits will play the Premade queue.
Noobs and casual gamers will play the Solo queue.If a elit plays the solo queue with the elo an elit should be added to the other team.
plus every match will be random and have more of a chance of being balanced compared to premades or partial premades vs pug.
.
With the elo system the solo queue will be evened out alot.
plus the Solo queue will end the uneven premade vs pug mismatch that has been going on and is making domination matches unbalanced and boring.
Its really an easy fix.
How is it you need this explained in detail?
Its very simple.
Stop over thinking everything.
Premade queue
Solo Queue
I pretty much agree with everything here 100%. Forcing a high GS player or low GS player into a solo que to get quick que pops and balanced matchmaking is the most important thing.
Under zouldryn's solution new players could still form a full premade with friends and proceed to get stomped by a elite premade, which more or less is EXACTLY what happens anyway.
Having "new blood" encounter BIS monsters is not such a bad thing if they are highly likely to have a BIS monster on their team and likely to see "new blood" on the other team. Seeing the old guard's specs and skill set could give them something to aspire to. The real problem is that a new 60 is given NO CHANCE to actually compete or develop skills. In a balanced match-up every player's contribution is important to the win and this gives every player reason to play and potentially have fun.
Not without bots farming all the stuff for them they can't. Which was what I said originally. And it's why new players will never catch up with you. At least not for the next year or so if Cryptic gives it merest of efforts to catch more bots.
This is my main motivation for saying "let's just split the 2 extremes and be done with it". Even I, who knows not to take people seriously over the internet, am disgusted by the way you treat weaker players just because you can and are safely hidden behind a computer screen. You lot are simply no fun to be around. At all.
PS: I know there's quite a lot of decent people among you. Unfortunately, it's the rotten apples leaving the deepest impressions.
You make some important points, some of which I agree with completely. However, I have seen you stand on your soap box and continuously, and one-sidely flame suggestions with pessimism and negativity. The topic of this thread was to improve pvp, lets keep our criticism constructive shall we?
The gap between the old guard and new players is quite large and not going to disappear any time soon. This is not just in terms of bis gear but also in skill, and knowing both the history and systems of the game.
Separating the two factions isn't a bad suggestion, but I have a better one. How about the game is changed so that they are no longer put into direct competition against each other. Better yet, what if there were incentives offered for the old guard to advise and guide the new generation.
Solo que vs premade que does this, at least at the premade GROUP vs casual puggers GROUP level.
Off topic, if unbound drops no longer were present in T2 dungeons you would no longer see "15k+ CW/GWF" in LFG. On the other hand, a rainbow party of new players in the 9-10k range are likely to find these dungeons as painful and challenging as the old guard did in the early stages of the game. Which is where a mechanic for tangibly rewarding a "guide" could do wonders.
Rather than making the blanket statements about how BIS twinks are terrible people, how about recognizing that the mechanics of this game give no incentive for an experienced player to help or care about about a new player other than "being nice", which has it's limits for the best of us. If anything this game gives plenty of reasons for the two factions to exploit or hate each other. I could give a thousand examples of this, but frankly, it's pretty **** obvious.
Thing is, you yourself -I mean all those BiS people in general- are taking the fun out of PvP, doubly so for newbies. Consider:
Have you seen zone/local chats during matches? That's why I quit PvP guilds. No respect, death treats/wishes, more cursing and a "friendly" 1o1 usually turns out to be a lame excuse to get another kill. There's no honor among you. There's only the greed for the next kill and the desire to get it before your team mate does. You flame people for being new, swear loudly on the forums when faced with weaker people than yourself but refuse to teach them anything unless they already have the gear. You gank up on lone wolves in OPvP, but complain it's never used.
Nobody without the absolute desire to PvP better than you will put up with you.
Excuse me for being so blunt, but that's how newbies look at you after a few matches against you. Possibly worse if they are Luskan and do GG, with your deliberate bug abusing and trying to enter enemy's spawnpoints either with skills or personally, hoping for that 1 more easy kill. No honor, no pride, no dignity. You call that PvP? I certainly do not. I call that bullying people because you can.
I certainly would not want to face all that any more than is absolutely needed. In most cases, getting the artifact is where people draw the line if they even put up with you that long. Can you blame them?
This is my main motivation for saying "let's just split the 2 extremes and be done with it". Even I, who knows not to take people seriously over the internet, am disgusted by the way you treat weaker players just because you can and are safely hidden behind a computer screen. You lot are simply no fun to be around. At all.
PS: I know there's quite a lot of decent people among you. Unfortunately, it's the rotten apples leaving the deepest impressions.
I rarely agree with you, bit this was very well said.
Hey, good idea. Having a 10k cap would guarantee that skill counts, rather than gear. No P2W and more.
Years and years of experience has taught me that usually the people who whine about gear difference or 'P2W', still tend to lose against equally geared opponents, and would still keep whining even after gear disparity ceases to become an issue.
Usually the people who stay quiet, and understand that gear difference is just a natural part of most PvP games setups, and work hard to take the time to diligently farm stuff and gear up -- its these people who really become good players, not the gear/P2W whiners.
...so yeah, sure. Why not. Maybe they could scale-down item performance until the overall spec output reaches around 10k, if someone has higher GS than that. If that's what the people want, and it applies equally to everyone, I see no reason why not. In the end, the whiners still lose.
Stop making excuses. Be a man. If you know something to be broken, stop using it. Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
Improving the pvp experience might start with a decent queue system and more than 2 maps....just a thought lol. And to say that it isn't a pvp game is redundant. They couldn't possibly remove pvp entirely because the pve content is so mundane and repetative.
Can we try pvp que with GS limit of 10k? This would help solve a couple of issues:
1. Bots
2. AD farmers
3. Less chance of spawn camping
Majority of the matches are being spent spawn camping no matter what time. It is too unbalanced atm. Forget about fair matches at all when neverember has the 8k pvp reward. If not a GS limit then I suggest some sort of bracket system so the low GS players can play together and vice versa. These suggestions have been made already maybe its about time we try it out? Thanks (level 60 pvp)
1. Institute a 10k GS limit. Players 10-12 k would have a chance of going in battles with players under the ten k limit.
While players over 12k would only meet players 10 k and above. This would keep people from running right at the 10k GS edge and slaughtering lower gs guys, as they could just as easily be at a 2k disadvantage. You could do same at 14-16 k.
Would lead to longer queues, but would be more balanced.
Also , disable gear changing once in queue for pvp. That would keep people from unequipping/re-equipping gear to get in lower gs bracket matches.
2. Make a guild type pvp territorial map. Let guilds hold one or two spots on the map. Have regularly scheduled or even daily 10v10 or 20v20 to take prized territory from adjacent guilds. Payout for territories could be adjusted to make certain ones more valuable. Have titles and prizes for holding choice territory the longest or winning the most fights in a row etc. Add a news ticker that would pop up when a guild loses/takes a territory. It would give some of these guilds that have invested so much in pvp something to do besides smack noobs around in pugs.
3. Add guild housing with an arena where you can duel each other.
Make it so two parties can stand in the arena and challenge one another in a death match or cap point style match.
Just be sure to include plenty of AD sinks.
Comments
The direct fight on the bots has not done much at all. They are still here 1+ years later!
Making a solo queue and a premade queue while using the elo we have now would help alot.
Its really not so complicated.I have been pvping in mmos since Ultima online.All I do pretty much is play Domintation matches in neverwinter.
everyone is over complicating everything.
Premades(of coarse) and elits will play the Premade queue.
Noobs and casual gamers will play the Solo queue.If a elit plays the solo queue with the elo an elit should be added to the other team.
plus every match will be random and have more of a chance of being balanced compared to premades or partial premades vs pug.
.
With the elo system the solo queue will be evened out alot.
plus the Solo queue will end the uneven premade vs pug mismatch that has been going on and is making domination matches unbalanced and boring.
Its really an easy fix.
How is it you need this explained in detail?
Its very simple.
Stop over thinking everything.
Premade queue
Solo Queue
It will work
with a premade queue the premades wont be bored fighting solo queuers all the time.
They will always face a premade. Add the elo to that and it should be more balanced.
The elo system probably wont have to work as hard either.
so they can crank it up and matches will pop faster with better balanced teams.
Whats making the elo system work so hard is the premades and pugs.
separate them and you should be able to crank up the elo system.
No matter how you look at it separating the queues will make the matchmaking system more balanced.
Plus should make the elo system work more efficiently.so they can crank it up with less wait times.
This is exactly the issue I am talking about.
@zouldryn having solo que and premade que will not help with this.
hahah.....dont make me laugh. Elo system i almost cracked up
If the elo system could be turned up without wait times affected wouldn't that make the new players and elite players more likely to be grouped up more often than it is now?
Plus if a elite player joined a solo match wouldn't the elo try to put another elite on the other team.
The main problem with the elo system is it can hardly be used because of the wait times so they have it turned so far down we cant hardly tell the difference.
If separating the queues frees up the elo system so it can be turned up then new 9k-10k pvpers wouldnt see a 20k in a match and elit 20k players wont see 9k-10k in their matches either.
no Idea what to do about bots though.
not everybody with perfects/rank10, got them with bots, most of them, are players that played this game for very long....
You know people can swipe the credit card and obtain all this in about 1 hour worth of work right?
This gap mechanism is official. PWI allows you to pay and skip farming for enchants and refine materials altogether.
So there isn't any "mess". This is how PWI made their game.
It would be easy to "fix" by making any combat-related item obtainable through farming alone and put out ZAX completely out if its misery so people would not be able to make AD by buying it with money, they would have to get AD in the game alone, by farming.
Yet we don't see this happening
Now, improving PvP:
Not possible.
- Huge gap in power between players
- Small player pool to draw from that puts everybody together with everybody else
- pretty dumb matchmaking
- Not enough interest in PvP, only an extremely small (not even 50) community
I'd say these would take years to fix. Years that a F2P MMO with a small team, mostly dedicated to PvE, don't really have.
I pretty much agree with everything here 100%. Forcing a high GS player or low GS player into a solo que to get quick que pops and balanced matchmaking is the most important thing.
Under zouldryn's solution new players could still form a full premade with friends and proceed to get stomped by a elite premade, which more or less is EXACTLY what happens anyway.
Having "new blood" encounter BIS monsters is not such a bad thing if they are highly likely to have a BIS monster on their team and likely to see "new blood" on the other team. Seeing the old guard's specs and skill set could give them something to aspire to. The real problem is that a new 60 is given NO CHANCE to actually compete or develop skills. In a balanced match-up every player's contribution is important to the win and this gives every player reason to play and potentially have fun.
You make some important points, some of which I agree with completely. However, I have seen you stand on your soap box and continuously, and one-sidely flame suggestions with pessimism and negativity. The topic of this thread was to improve pvp, lets keep our criticism constructive shall we?
The gap between the old guard and new players is quite large and not going to disappear any time soon. This is not just in terms of bis gear but also in skill, and knowing both the history and systems of the game.
Separating the two factions isn't a bad suggestion, but I have a better one. How about the game is changed so that they are no longer put into direct competition against each other. Better yet, what if there were incentives offered for the old guard to advise and guide the new generation.
Solo que vs premade que does this, at least at the premade GROUP vs casual puggers GROUP level.
Off topic, if unbound drops no longer were present in T2 dungeons you would no longer see "15k+ CW/GWF" in LFG. On the other hand, a rainbow party of new players in the 9-10k range are likely to find these dungeons as painful and challenging as the old guard did in the early stages of the game. Which is where a mechanic for tangibly rewarding a "guide" could do wonders.
Rather than making the blanket statements about how BIS twinks are terrible people, how about recognizing that the mechanics of this game give no incentive for an experienced player to help or care about about a new player other than "being nice", which has it's limits for the best of us. If anything this game gives plenty of reasons for the two factions to exploit or hate each other. I could give a thousand examples of this, but frankly, it's pretty **** obvious.
Hey, good idea. Having a 10k cap would guarantee that skill counts, rather than gear. No P2W and more.
Years and years of experience has taught me that usually the people who whine about gear difference or 'P2W', still tend to lose against equally geared opponents, and would still keep whining even after gear disparity ceases to become an issue.
Usually the people who stay quiet, and understand that gear difference is just a natural part of most PvP games setups, and work hard to take the time to diligently farm stuff and gear up -- its these people who really become good players, not the gear/P2W whiners.
...so yeah, sure. Why not. Maybe they could scale-down item performance until the overall spec output reaches around 10k, if someone has higher GS than that. If that's what the people want, and it applies equally to everyone, I see no reason why not. In the end, the whiners still lose.
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
1. Institute a 10k GS limit. Players 10-12 k would have a chance of going in battles with players under the ten k limit.
While players over 12k would only meet players 10 k and above. This would keep people from running right at the 10k GS edge and slaughtering lower gs guys, as they could just as easily be at a 2k disadvantage. You could do same at 14-16 k.
Would lead to longer queues, but would be more balanced.
Also , disable gear changing once in queue for pvp. That would keep people from unequipping/re-equipping gear to get in lower gs bracket matches.
2. Make a guild type pvp territorial map. Let guilds hold one or two spots on the map. Have regularly scheduled or even daily 10v10 or 20v20 to take prized territory from adjacent guilds. Payout for territories could be adjusted to make certain ones more valuable. Have titles and prizes for holding choice territory the longest or winning the most fights in a row etc. Add a news ticker that would pop up when a guild loses/takes a territory. It would give some of these guilds that have invested so much in pvp something to do besides smack noobs around in pugs.
3. Add guild housing with an arena where you can duel each other.
Make it so two parties can stand in the arena and challenge one another in a death match or cap point style match.
Just be sure to include plenty of AD sinks.