We have been asking for this for a while now. Maybe we will get it soon. It's not a lot to ask.
The only players who oppose it are the hard core premade players who enjoy their pug stomps, so don't listen to them.
We have been asking for this for a while now. Maybe we will get it soon. It's not a lot to ask.
The only players who oppose it are the hard core premade players who enjoy their pug stomps, so don't listen to them.
How do you presume to know what I think? I can't stand pugstomps, I pray for premade matches. If you had actually read the thread instead of just repeating your talking points, you would know that most of us feel it would be a disaster without improved matchmaking. If you have the improved matchmaking, then you don't need separate queues. You are looking at the symptom, not the root cause of the issue.
How do you presume to know what I think? I can't stand pugstomps, I pray for premade matches. If you had actually read the thread instead of just repeating your talking points, you would know that most of us feel it would be a disaster without improved matchmaking. If you have the improved matchmaking, then you don't need separate queues. You are looking at the symptom, not the root cause of the issue.
Brandon, it ain't worth trying. It's just gonna waste your time if you try and argue with him.
I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
But it's less frustrating than actually logging into the game...
...besides, I disagree with this aspect:
We need both separate queues and matchmaking. Doing one without the other is failure.
That depends on the matchmaker. If it takes teams into account, and attempts to match them with other teams for a certain time before dropping in against the best available, then we really wouldn't have a problem not having separate queues. It all depends on how it would be implemented. I worry mainly about the overall queue population, could it really support separate queues?
That depends on the matchmaker. If it takes teams into account, and attempts to match them with other teams for a certain time before dropping in against the best available, then we really wouldn't have a problem not having separate queues. It all depends on how it would be implemented, but I worry mainly about the overall queue population, could it really support separate queues?
Which is where it's kind of moot. Even going RvB, are there enough folks that PvP to support them? They might be able to salvage PUG queues, but would it kill Teams?
Again though, one of the longstanding arguments against the complaints about Teams has been that not all Teams are the same.
Premade
Fleetmade
PUGmade
Yet, some of the same folks that have been making that argument suddenly want to dismiss that argument in discussing matchmaking. If the experience and teamwork mattered as a defense against the issue of PUGstomping - then why does it no longer matter here? It oozes dishonesty...
Take five folks, 4 bad players and 1 good player on each team. On one team, the good player has played with one of the bad players a bunch. While the other good player has no idea what kind of flaky stuff his or her 4 bad players are going to do...the good player that's at least played with one of the their bad players often enough is going to have an idea of the flaky fun that player will get up to...giving them an advantage.
Folks want their cake and a slice of pie..."You can't say all teams are equal, some folks are just playing with friends - they don't have all that teamwork and experience going for them!" "Teamwork and experience doesn't matter!" Meh...yeah...right. /facepalm
But yeah, say they could salvage a PUG queue - where the matchmaking took into account not only the players individually but also whether they've played with the other players in the queue as well; you might get a least worst case scenario going where you'd have somewhat balanced PUG queues...
...but then head over to the Team queues, and if there's nobody of the same caliber in the queues - then that group's never going to get a match otherwise.
So perhaps a queue system isn't what Teams need, because there's simply not enough Teams to support such a system - which is why threads like this come up so often, eh?
So perhaps Teams need a lobby system instead - folks can actively look for and agree to matches. Heck, it's been suggested to replace the whole queue system with such a system. What do folks think would happen there though? Those PUG folks get dropped in a room or peak in a room where they see a Team's waiting...and they're going to what? Leave...look for another room.
Basically, STO doesn't have the population to support Teams...and with Teams driving away players that might stick around eventually to increase the Team population, they're doing it to themselves.
So yeah, perhaps matchmaking PUG queues and a Team lobby system...and no, the Team folks aren't likely to be happy about it at first. But at least it might grow the PvP playerbase so they can recruit and form more Teams so that in the long run things are better...
...but what do I know, I just fly around in circles going wheeee!
edit: I'm not anti-team, here...I want the PvP population in STO to grow. I believe for that to happen, you need a pretty hefty casual base from which some folks will rise up to join the more organized play. As folks move up, folks see that's possible, then more folks may want to move up. Overall, as more folks see they can do the casual thing - more folks will come as well. So you'd be growing both the casual base and the organized level...and then we've got enough folks that Cryptic actually sees the revenue stream and things end up not so borked.
edit2: So yeah, one could say I'm pretty damn delusional. :P
Yet, some of the same folks that have been making that argument suddenly want to dismiss that argument in discussing matchmaking. If the experience and teamwork mattered as a defense against the issue of PUGstomping - then why does it no longer matter here? It oozes dishonesty...
No one is dismissing that, it's part of what a ranking system decides when it pairs Team A vs. Team B.
It doesn't matter if its a premade/pugmade/fleetmade, it just matters what their current team ranking or 5 man total rank equals vs. the team it will get matched with, and whether or not the team was formed before joining the queue.
It has zero, literally zero, to do with dishonesty.
You're automatically concluding that every premade is clearly superior to every PUGmade. This is definitely not the case.
Player/team total rank and whether or not the team was formed before joining the queue would be the deciding factors - not those arbitrary labels that the forums are always bickering about.
It's far from perfect, and it has limitations but Mechwarrior Online has a Ranking system that does something to this effect. At the very least they have something unlike the nothing we have from Cryptic.
No one is dismissing that, it's part of what a ranking system decides when it pairs Team A vs. Team B.
It doesn't matter if its a premade/pugmade/fleetmade, it just matters what their current team ranking or 5 man total rank equals vs. the team it will get matched with, and whether or not the team was formed before joining the queue.
It has zero, literally zero, to do with dishonesty.
You're automatically concluding that every premade is clearly superior to every PUGmade. This is definitely not the case.
Player/team total rank and whether or not the team was formed before joining the queue would be the deciding factors - not those arbitrary labels that the forums are always bickering about.
It's far from perfect, and it has limitations but Mechwarrior Online has a Ranking system that does something to this effect. At the very least they have something unlike the nothing we have from Cryptic.
No, I'm saying that individual ranking and pretending that teamwork has no bearing on that is being dishonest. I've said it throughout the thread.
Say Laurel, Hardy, Abbott, and Costello all have similar rating...are you going to get the same performance out of Laurel with Abbott and Hardy with Costello as you would from Laurel with Hardy and Abbott with Costello? That simple...
...with folks that have argued that a PUGmade is not equal to a Fleetmade is not equal to a Premade - based on the amount of teamwork/experience playing together...
...while turning around and saying that teamwork/experience playing together doesn't matter - which would be akin to saying that the PUGmade is equal to a Fleetmade is equal to a Premade.
Which is it? That's where I'm saying folks are being dishonest.
Either teamwork/experience doesn't matter, in which case the argument about PUGmades not being equal to Premades should stop...or teamwork/experience does matter, in which case matchmaking needs to take into consideration how much experience any two or more parties have had playing together.
That simple...
It's not about Team matchmaking (Team A vs. Team , this is about the folks saying that there would be no need for separate queues because of matchmaking (Team A vs. Random Guys ...completely discounting any teamwork/experience playing together while having previously used the teamwork/experience playing together reasoning to separate PUGmades/Fleetmades/Premades.
So people who are accustomed to teamwork would have (possibly artificially) high rankings or balance score or combat effectiveness, whatever you want to call it. The only result I can see from this is that people who frequently run with a team would have a harder time when they PUG. Of course, as stated, they have more experience with teamwork in STO, so are more likely to support their team in a meaningful way. I really don't see the issue.
that's 700 posts since forum reset (which includes my self-imposed year long forum ban)
edit: If you're worried about a group of individuals with high scores being matched against a premade, well, that could happen, but the ideal matchmaker would attempt to find another team for the premade to play before trying to match it vs PUGs.
So people who are accustomed to teamwork would have (possibly artificially) high rankings or balance score or combat effectiveness, whatever you want to call it. The only result I can see from this is that people who frequently run with a team would have a harder time when they PUG. Of course, as stated, they have more experience with teamwork in STO, so are more likely to support their team in a meaningful way. I really don't see the issue.
that's 700 posts since forum reset (which includes my self-imposed year long forum ban)
Since it would average their scores, both when they are running with their standard team and when they are PUGing...the following issues arise:
1) Were they with their team, they're going to be performing at the higher end of their scores - not the lower end. Their performance will be better than is suggested by their average score, because they're with their team.
2) Even if not their full team, being partnered with members of their team; they're going to perform higher than the low end and thus perform higher than their average suggests.
3) When not partnered with anybody from their team, they'll have the opposite issue - where their performance will actually be lower than that suggested by their average score.
Yet that average score is going to be used for matchmaking? Two guys, same average score - but one of them falls into category #1 and one of them falls into category #3...they're not equal at that point, regardless of what the average score suggests - because one's playing in the high range for that score determination and one's playing in the low range for that score determination.
Now if you also track teams - track the folks they've played with and how they've performed with those people...you can give a better representation of that player's performance in the various scenarios and avoid placing that #1 guy vs. that #3 guy...
edit: If you're worried about a group of individuals with high scores being matched against a premade, well, that could happen, but the ideal matchmaker would attempt to find another team for the premade to play before trying to match it vs PUGs.
It's not even Team vs. PUG. 2-3 guys from a Premade, depending on how bad the 3-2 guys not from the Premade are vs. 2-3 guys "ranked" the same as the guys from the Premade but without any experience working together at the level of the other 2-3 guys and paired with 3-2 guys of equivalent ranking as the other team's 3-2 non-Premade guys...that's not a balanced match.
It's fundamental teams...a sports team brings in a new awesome player, guy's got all sort of experience, he's a superstar...he still has to practice with the team before taking the field. Still has to go through the team's playbook. He might be able to stumble through some generic stuff because of how good he is, but he won't be as good as he would having practiced with the team. That simple...
edit: It's not a case of saying it wouldn't potentially be better, but there's a difference between calling it a more balanced system and a balanced system. It could be more balanced, but it wouldn't be balanced.
edit2: And in the end, as mentioned - there's a high rated Premade in the queue...who will they be matched against? Would it be a case of after a certain amount of time they were just matched to the highest possible rated players in the queue? Would it set a threshold on certain players, so individuals would be trapped waiting for additional players of their rating to be matched up with that Premade? Or in the end would it have just been a lot of wasted effort to leave us with basically what we have now?
Say Laurel, Hardy, Abbott, and Costello all have similar rating...are you going to get the same performance out of Laurel with Abbott and Hardy with Costello as you would from Laurel with Hardy and Abbott with Costello? That simple...
So your concern is that players get really good individual ratings from playing in their Laurel/Hardy or Abbott/Costello premades and then get "punished" for their premading when they queue alone because the matchmaking might pit them against players who are too strong because they have similar individual ratings that do not rely on premade support?
Is your concern that soloing premade players will make the pugs they are in lose because the premade players aren't good enough when they are without their exact premade buddies?
EDIT: brandon already raised these points while I was still typing.
I actually really like the 'lobby' idea.
Don't need ranks then.
You can see who's queued in each instance, inclusive of fleet names.
A casual might see a team consisting of 2 novas, 2 pandas and 1 raumflotte Ely (for example) but underneath they see another instance with a bunch of utter randoms, which would the casual choose?
More than likely the random to go against.
Yet the one with the high end players will get other high end players matching up.
Not that it matters anymore to me, I'm done with the stupid farce of a game anyway.
Two guys, same average score - but one of them falls into category #1 and one of them falls into category #3...they're not equal at that point, regardless of what the average score suggests - because one's playing in the high range for that score determination and one's playing in the low range for that score determination.
This assumes that in this particular match one of them is queueing up teamed and the other isn't, right?
One could apply a factor to pre-teamed players in a mixed queue so that the more pre-teamed players you bring, the stronger your opponents get. That way when the matchmaking places a full pre-teamed group of 5 against 5 random players, the random players will have higher individual scores to balance out the assumed team synergy on the other side.
And this should work. Just take 5 random OPVP players with a decent eng/sci/tac and heal/damage balance and have them play against your run-of-the-mill "Federation Borg Defense Red Squadron Elite" premade/fleetmade. My bet is on the OPVP pug.
So your concern is that players get really good individual ratings from playing in their Laurel/Hardy or Abbott/Costello premades and then get "punished" for their premading when they queue alone because the matchmaking might pit them against players who are too strong because they have similar individual ratings that do not rely on premade support?
Is your concern that soloing premade players will make the pugs they are in lose because the premade players aren't good enough when they are without their exact premade buddies?
EDIT: brandon already raised these points while I was still typing.
As I mentioned in my previous post...but sticking with the four comedians (and then some) to perhaps better clarify.
Laurel/Hardy and Abbott/Costello likely generate their highest ratings while playing together.
Laurel/Frank, Hardy/Joe, Abbott/Biff, Costello/Ted likely result in their lowest ratings.
Those ratings will be averaged. Now, how that's averaged will depend on the percentage of games played with their normal partners or with strangers. They could game the system to deflate artificially their individual ratings so that when they play together they have a better chance of beating a pair of likewise rated players that have not gamed the system. They'd actually be better than their numbers suggest...because of gaming the system.
Aside from that form of malice though, say they had a 50:50 ratio going so that they had a fairly balanced average of their ratings from playing together and playing with strangers...it's still an average rating - they still play better together than they do with strangers.
Going with just Laurel...
Laurel/Hardy
Laurel/Costello
Laurel/Frank
...his rating would be the same to put him in all three of those pairings, but his expected performance in all three of those pairings is definitely going to vary.
This assumes that in this particular match one of them is queueing up teamed and the other isn't, right?
One could apply a factor to pre-teamed players in a mixed queue so that the more pre-teamed players you bring, the stronger your opponents get. That way when the matchmaking places a full pre-teamed group of 5 against 5 random players, the random players will have higher individual scores to balance out the assumed team synergy on the other side.
And this should work. Just take 5 random OPVP players with a decent eng/sci/tac and heal/damage balance and have them play against your run-of-the-mill "Federation Borg Defense Red Squadron Elite" premade/fleetmade. My bet is on the OPVP pug.
That second part is the gist of what I'm saying. That the system should (imho) take that into consideration...and it would be much better (again imho) than ignoring that aspect. But it wouldn't just be if they teamed together, it would be if they were going to be teamed together potentially.
Going back to the Laurel/Hardy/etc thing - that if they were in the queue together with say Tom, Jerry, and Abbott (Costello was eating) - that instead of putting together Laurel/Hardy vs. Tom/Abbott - it would either try to put Laurel/Hardy vs. Tom/Jerry or it would split up both Laurel/Hardy and Tom/Jerry...so perhaps you had Laurel/Tom and Jerry/Costello.
As for the last part, that would be handled by the basic matchmaking - those guys wouldn't have that high of a rating to begin with...would they? I mean, some of them - bless their hearts...yeah, never mind - I'm in no position to point out how much some folks out there are pretty damn bad when I'm so pretty damn bad (outside of being able to see how bad five goofballs like me running around would be)...
Well, if Laurel/Hardy queue up teamed, then one could apply a penalty to match them against players with better individual scores than Laurel and Costello. (Tracking all possible teams that ever played in order to detect synergies and match players acordingly is probably not computationally viable.)
If they don't queue up teamed, then it's just a pure pug queue and the matchmaking is unlikely to make things worse than if it were purely random.
I actually really like the 'lobby' idea.
Don't need ranks then.
You can see who's queued in each instance, inclusive of fleet names.
A casual might see a team consisting of 2 novas, 2 pandas and 1 raumflotte Ely (for example) but underneath they see another instance with a bunch of utter randoms, which would the casual choose?
More than likely the random to go against.
Yet the one with the high end players will get other high end players matching up.
Not that it matters anymore to me, I'm done with the stupid farce of a game anyway.
You could still end up with some pretty bad matches - without some form of randomization of the teams based on rating, no? Are folks expected to remember every @handle, every alt @handle, of every player?
Which is where the folks arguing for matchmaking (imho) have brought up a very valid point that PUG vs. PUG doesn't mean that the matches would be balanced anyway - even if the Teams were kept out.
All such a system would really do is allow folks to attempt to avoid teams...without necessarily improving the chances of it being a balanced match outside of avoiding teams.
Which also gets into say there's two folks from the same fleet - are they to be avoided like the plague? Why not try to find some sort of balanced match for them as well?
Well, if Laurel/Hardy queue up teamed, then one could apply a penalty to match them against players with better individual scores than Laurel and Costello. (Tracking all possible teams that ever played in order to detect synergies and match players acordingly is probably not computationally viable.)
If they don't queue up teamed, then it's just a pure pug queue and the matchmaking is unlikely to make things worse than if it were purely random.
It would be all but impossible to track all the potential teams - even trying to set a threshold to begin tracking team scores would require the tracking of all potential teams up to that point. It would be a massive waste of resources.
It's more a case of while everybody's sitting around the table discussing things - trying to take into account as much as possible that will affect any potential resolutions to the perceived issue. Then going through everything, weighing the solutions vs. the perceived issue - scratching off various suggestions, holding on to some in case, and then narrowing down the options to proceed...taking a closer look at them - fleshing them out some more. Some review, some proposals drafted, and then looking at it again. It's not deciding where to order lunch from - it's going to be a massive allocation of resources with a necessary return on the investment...whether directly or indirectly. It either needs to pay for itself or lend itself to something else that will help pay for it.
These threads have been popping up for how many years now? Not just in STO - in all sorts of games that have had the same or similar perceived issues. Which also provides some informational resources to see how it has been handled elsewhere; keeping in mind the PvP populations of those games and that solutions elsewhere may not work here.
Like I said, I want to see the PvP community grow - I believe that starts with a casual base, but that in the end that casual base can't survive without the organized level. It needs both; but given the nature of the game as a very casual game...it needs to start casual to fit the game. Were this a far less casual game, I'd be doing the trickle down thing - starting with the more organized feeding the casual...but in the end both would still be required, imho. It's a symbiotic relationship - growing a PvP community, again imho.
And the thing that's been killing me about all the discussion in this thread, and I believe I even tried to bow out of the discussion at one point...is it's relatively moot to discuss the player aspect of it while Cryptic continues to do things that aren't all that conducive to growing a PvP community themselves. Heck, I think that was along the lines of my first post in the thread - that the PUG vs. Team thing is the least of the issues with PvP in this game.
Heh, it's not usual for me to speak sense...it's more like a 1% proc on some gear you've actually got equipped on another ship.
Most of what I say is delusional and impractical...
edit: Heck, I deleted 8x 50's and rerolled 7 guys with the hopes of having a more diversified selection of toons to be able to better enjoy PvP...but I've dragged TRIBBLE all over the place and only just got the last one to 50 not long ago. They should have all been T5 across the board already...who knows when that will happen. Yeah, I'm not all there - flaky as Hell...I should just quietly wobble on out of the PvP forums.
Yeah, I'm not all there - flaky as Hell...I should just quietly wobble on out of the PvP forums.
Please don't, this forum, including your posts are one of the few things that keep me sane in regards to this game. Not an easy task to fulfill, all things considered.
I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
edit: Heck, I deleted 8x 50's and rerolled 7 guys with the hopes of having a more diversified selection of toons to be able to better enjoy PvP...but I've dragged TRIBBLE all over the place and only just got the last one to 50 not long ago. They should have all been T5 across the board already...who knows when that will happen. Yeah, I'm not all there - flaky as Hell...I should just quietly wobble on out of the PvP forums.
Aww no you don't - *activates tractor beam*
Like my sig says, take it easy. No reason to be all in a rush.
I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
It usually takes 2-3x SNBs, basically everything on the hotbar saying it will be available sometime tomorrow...
...or you can just use Phased Polarons.
Not joking in the least. Phased Polarons are the leading cause of my death on Willard.
It's kind of funny how messy the screen gets when I'm scrambled or AMS'd...I still don't like that it reveals a cloaker to folks. I guess the reasoning is it screws up FoF transmitters; but it generally results in dropping Photonic, Nimbus, Warp Shadows, and hitting QSM (the +100 to Sensors in addition to what he already has cuts the duration down).
But yeah, stacked SNBs has been the bane of all my "Wheeee!" toons - but yeah too, Phased Polarons have normally been the weapons with the best chance of killing him.
Comments
The only players who oppose it are the hard core premade players who enjoy their pug stomps, so don't listen to them.
Visit my youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/Akurie369?feature=watch
Captain Bi Shonen's official Thread! http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=22866531#post22866531
How do you presume to know what I think? I can't stand pugstomps, I pray for premade matches. If you had actually read the thread instead of just repeating your talking points, you would know that most of us feel it would be a disaster without improved matchmaking. If you have the improved matchmaking, then you don't need separate queues. You are looking at the symptom, not the root cause of the issue.
Brandon, it ain't worth trying. It's just gonna waste your time if you try and argue with him.
But it's less frustrating than actually logging into the game...
...besides, I disagree with this aspect:
We need both separate queues and matchmaking. Doing one without the other is failure.
That depends on the matchmaker. If it takes teams into account, and attempts to match them with other teams for a certain time before dropping in against the best available, then we really wouldn't have a problem not having separate queues. It all depends on how it would be implemented. I worry mainly about the overall queue population, could it really support separate queues?
Which is where it's kind of moot. Even going RvB, are there enough folks that PvP to support them? They might be able to salvage PUG queues, but would it kill Teams?
Again though, one of the longstanding arguments against the complaints about Teams has been that not all Teams are the same.
Premade
Fleetmade
PUGmade
Yet, some of the same folks that have been making that argument suddenly want to dismiss that argument in discussing matchmaking. If the experience and teamwork mattered as a defense against the issue of PUGstomping - then why does it no longer matter here? It oozes dishonesty...
Take five folks, 4 bad players and 1 good player on each team. On one team, the good player has played with one of the bad players a bunch. While the other good player has no idea what kind of flaky stuff his or her 4 bad players are going to do...the good player that's at least played with one of the their bad players often enough is going to have an idea of the flaky fun that player will get up to...giving them an advantage.
Folks want their cake and a slice of pie..."You can't say all teams are equal, some folks are just playing with friends - they don't have all that teamwork and experience going for them!" "Teamwork and experience doesn't matter!" Meh...yeah...right. /facepalm
But yeah, say they could salvage a PUG queue - where the matchmaking took into account not only the players individually but also whether they've played with the other players in the queue as well; you might get a least worst case scenario going where you'd have somewhat balanced PUG queues...
...but then head over to the Team queues, and if there's nobody of the same caliber in the queues - then that group's never going to get a match otherwise.
So perhaps a queue system isn't what Teams need, because there's simply not enough Teams to support such a system - which is why threads like this come up so often, eh?
So perhaps Teams need a lobby system instead - folks can actively look for and agree to matches. Heck, it's been suggested to replace the whole queue system with such a system. What do folks think would happen there though? Those PUG folks get dropped in a room or peak in a room where they see a Team's waiting...and they're going to what? Leave...look for another room.
Basically, STO doesn't have the population to support Teams...and with Teams driving away players that might stick around eventually to increase the Team population, they're doing it to themselves.
So yeah, perhaps matchmaking PUG queues and a Team lobby system...and no, the Team folks aren't likely to be happy about it at first. But at least it might grow the PvP playerbase so they can recruit and form more Teams so that in the long run things are better...
...but what do I know, I just fly around in circles going wheeee!
edit: I'm not anti-team, here...I want the PvP population in STO to grow. I believe for that to happen, you need a pretty hefty casual base from which some folks will rise up to join the more organized play. As folks move up, folks see that's possible, then more folks may want to move up. Overall, as more folks see they can do the casual thing - more folks will come as well. So you'd be growing both the casual base and the organized level...and then we've got enough folks that Cryptic actually sees the revenue stream and things end up not so borked.
edit2: So yeah, one could say I'm pretty damn delusional. :P
No one is dismissing that, it's part of what a ranking system decides when it pairs Team A vs. Team B.
It doesn't matter if its a premade/pugmade/fleetmade, it just matters what their current team ranking or 5 man total rank equals vs. the team it will get matched with, and whether or not the team was formed before joining the queue.
It has zero, literally zero, to do with dishonesty.
You're automatically concluding that every premade is clearly superior to every PUGmade. This is definitely not the case.
Player/team total rank and whether or not the team was formed before joining the queue would be the deciding factors - not those arbitrary labels that the forums are always bickering about.
It's far from perfect, and it has limitations but Mechwarrior Online has a Ranking system that does something to this effect. At the very least they have something unlike the nothing we have from Cryptic.
No, I'm saying that individual ranking and pretending that teamwork has no bearing on that is being dishonest. I've said it throughout the thread.
Say Laurel, Hardy, Abbott, and Costello all have similar rating...are you going to get the same performance out of Laurel with Abbott and Hardy with Costello as you would from Laurel with Hardy and Abbott with Costello? That simple...
...with folks that have argued that a PUGmade is not equal to a Fleetmade is not equal to a Premade - based on the amount of teamwork/experience playing together...
...while turning around and saying that teamwork/experience playing together doesn't matter - which would be akin to saying that the PUGmade is equal to a Fleetmade is equal to a Premade.
Which is it? That's where I'm saying folks are being dishonest.
Either teamwork/experience doesn't matter, in which case the argument about PUGmades not being equal to Premades should stop...or teamwork/experience does matter, in which case matchmaking needs to take into consideration how much experience any two or more parties have had playing together.
That simple...
It's not about Team matchmaking (Team A vs. Team
that's 700 posts since forum reset (which includes my self-imposed year long forum ban)
edit: If you're worried about a group of individuals with high scores being matched against a premade, well, that could happen, but the ideal matchmaker would attempt to find another team for the premade to play before trying to match it vs PUGs.
Since it would average their scores, both when they are running with their standard team and when they are PUGing...the following issues arise:
1) Were they with their team, they're going to be performing at the higher end of their scores - not the lower end. Their performance will be better than is suggested by their average score, because they're with their team.
2) Even if not their full team, being partnered with members of their team; they're going to perform higher than the low end and thus perform higher than their average suggests.
3) When not partnered with anybody from their team, they'll have the opposite issue - where their performance will actually be lower than that suggested by their average score.
Yet that average score is going to be used for matchmaking? Two guys, same average score - but one of them falls into category #1 and one of them falls into category #3...they're not equal at that point, regardless of what the average score suggests - because one's playing in the high range for that score determination and one's playing in the low range for that score determination.
Now if you also track teams - track the folks they've played with and how they've performed with those people...you can give a better representation of that player's performance in the various scenarios and avoid placing that #1 guy vs. that #3 guy...
It's not even Team vs. PUG. 2-3 guys from a Premade, depending on how bad the 3-2 guys not from the Premade are vs. 2-3 guys "ranked" the same as the guys from the Premade but without any experience working together at the level of the other 2-3 guys and paired with 3-2 guys of equivalent ranking as the other team's 3-2 non-Premade guys...that's not a balanced match.
It's fundamental teams...a sports team brings in a new awesome player, guy's got all sort of experience, he's a superstar...he still has to practice with the team before taking the field. Still has to go through the team's playbook. He might be able to stumble through some generic stuff because of how good he is, but he won't be as good as he would having practiced with the team. That simple...
edit: It's not a case of saying it wouldn't potentially be better, but there's a difference between calling it a more balanced system and a balanced system. It could be more balanced, but it wouldn't be balanced.
edit2: And in the end, as mentioned - there's a high rated Premade in the queue...who will they be matched against? Would it be a case of after a certain amount of time they were just matched to the highest possible rated players in the queue? Would it set a threshold on certain players, so individuals would be trapped waiting for additional players of their rating to be matched up with that Premade? Or in the end would it have just been a lot of wasted effort to leave us with basically what we have now?
Is your concern that soloing premade players will make the pugs they are in lose because the premade players aren't good enough when they are without their exact premade buddies?
EDIT: brandon already raised these points while I was still typing.
Don't need ranks then.
You can see who's queued in each instance, inclusive of fleet names.
A casual might see a team consisting of 2 novas, 2 pandas and 1 raumflotte Ely (for example) but underneath they see another instance with a bunch of utter randoms, which would the casual choose?
More than likely the random to go against.
Yet the one with the high end players will get other high end players matching up.
Not that it matters anymore to me, I'm done with the stupid farce of a game anyway.
One could apply a factor to pre-teamed players in a mixed queue so that the more pre-teamed players you bring, the stronger your opponents get. That way when the matchmaking places a full pre-teamed group of 5 against 5 random players, the random players will have higher individual scores to balance out the assumed team synergy on the other side.
And this should work. Just take 5 random OPVP players with a decent eng/sci/tac and heal/damage balance and have them play against your run-of-the-mill "Federation Borg Defense Red Squadron Elite" premade/fleetmade. My bet is on the OPVP pug.
As I mentioned in my previous post...but sticking with the four comedians (and then some) to perhaps better clarify.
Laurel/Hardy and Abbott/Costello likely generate their highest ratings while playing together.
Laurel/Frank, Hardy/Joe, Abbott/Biff, Costello/Ted likely result in their lowest ratings.
Those ratings will be averaged. Now, how that's averaged will depend on the percentage of games played with their normal partners or with strangers. They could game the system to deflate artificially their individual ratings so that when they play together they have a better chance of beating a pair of likewise rated players that have not gamed the system. They'd actually be better than their numbers suggest...because of gaming the system.
Aside from that form of malice though, say they had a 50:50 ratio going so that they had a fairly balanced average of their ratings from playing together and playing with strangers...it's still an average rating - they still play better together than they do with strangers.
Going with just Laurel...
Laurel/Hardy
Laurel/Costello
Laurel/Frank
...his rating would be the same to put him in all three of those pairings, but his expected performance in all three of those pairings is definitely going to vary.
Or perhaps this is the simplest way to put it...
Laurel/Hardy vs. Laurel/Costello
...would that match not favor Laurel/Hardy?
That second part is the gist of what I'm saying. That the system should (imho) take that into consideration...and it would be much better (again imho) than ignoring that aspect. But it wouldn't just be if they teamed together, it would be if they were going to be teamed together potentially.
Going back to the Laurel/Hardy/etc thing - that if they were in the queue together with say Tom, Jerry, and Abbott (Costello was eating) - that instead of putting together Laurel/Hardy vs. Tom/Abbott - it would either try to put Laurel/Hardy vs. Tom/Jerry or it would split up both Laurel/Hardy and Tom/Jerry...so perhaps you had Laurel/Tom and Jerry/Costello.
As for the last part, that would be handled by the basic matchmaking - those guys wouldn't have that high of a rating to begin with...would they? I mean, some of them - bless their hearts...yeah, never mind - I'm in no position to point out how much some folks out there are pretty damn bad when I'm so pretty damn bad (outside of being able to see how bad five goofballs like me running around would be)...
If they don't queue up teamed, then it's just a pure pug queue and the matchmaking is unlikely to make things worse than if it were purely random.
You could still end up with some pretty bad matches - without some form of randomization of the teams based on rating, no? Are folks expected to remember every @handle, every alt @handle, of every player?
Which is where the folks arguing for matchmaking (imho) have brought up a very valid point that PUG vs. PUG doesn't mean that the matches would be balanced anyway - even if the Teams were kept out.
All such a system would really do is allow folks to attempt to avoid teams...without necessarily improving the chances of it being a balanced match outside of avoiding teams.
Which also gets into say there's two folks from the same fleet - are they to be avoided like the plague? Why not try to find some sort of balanced match for them as well?
As usual you speak sense.
It would be all but impossible to track all the potential teams - even trying to set a threshold to begin tracking team scores would require the tracking of all potential teams up to that point. It would be a massive waste of resources.
It's more a case of while everybody's sitting around the table discussing things - trying to take into account as much as possible that will affect any potential resolutions to the perceived issue. Then going through everything, weighing the solutions vs. the perceived issue - scratching off various suggestions, holding on to some in case, and then narrowing down the options to proceed...taking a closer look at them - fleshing them out some more. Some review, some proposals drafted, and then looking at it again. It's not deciding where to order lunch from - it's going to be a massive allocation of resources with a necessary return on the investment...whether directly or indirectly. It either needs to pay for itself or lend itself to something else that will help pay for it.
These threads have been popping up for how many years now? Not just in STO - in all sorts of games that have had the same or similar perceived issues. Which also provides some informational resources to see how it has been handled elsewhere; keeping in mind the PvP populations of those games and that solutions elsewhere may not work here.
Like I said, I want to see the PvP community grow - I believe that starts with a casual base, but that in the end that casual base can't survive without the organized level. It needs both; but given the nature of the game as a very casual game...it needs to start casual to fit the game. Were this a far less casual game, I'd be doing the trickle down thing - starting with the more organized feeding the casual...but in the end both would still be required, imho. It's a symbiotic relationship - growing a PvP community, again imho.
And the thing that's been killing me about all the discussion in this thread, and I believe I even tried to bow out of the discussion at one point...is it's relatively moot to discuss the player aspect of it while Cryptic continues to do things that aren't all that conducive to growing a PvP community themselves. Heck, I think that was along the lines of my first post in the thread - that the PUG vs. Team thing is the least of the issues with PvP in this game.
Heh, it's not usual for me to speak sense...it's more like a 1% proc on some gear you've actually got equipped on another ship.
Most of what I say is delusional and impractical...
edit: Heck, I deleted 8x 50's and rerolled 7 guys with the hopes of having a more diversified selection of toons to be able to better enjoy PvP...but I've dragged TRIBBLE all over the place and only just got the last one to 50 not long ago. They should have all been T5 across the board already...who knows when that will happen. Yeah, I'm not all there - flaky as Hell...I should just quietly wobble on out of the PvP forums.
Please don't, this forum, including your posts are one of the few things that keep me sane in regards to this game. Not an easy task to fulfill, all things considered.
Aww no you don't - *activates tractor beam*
Like my sig says, take it easy. No reason to be all in a rush.
Evasive Maneuvers 3
Attack Pattern Omega 3
Polarized Hull 1
Sensor Targeting Assault
Intimidating Strikes
er...whatever the KHG Shield proc's called
Tactical Team 1
Attack Pattern Delta 1
Engineering Team 1
Auxiliary to Structural Integrity 1
Science Team 1
Hazard Emitters 2
Transfer Shield Strength 2
Gravity Well 1
Torpedo Spread 1 & 3
Singularity Jump
Singularity Stabilizer
Warp Shadows
Feign Death (doesn't work while scrambled or tractored)
Gravimetric Photon Torpedo
Elachi Subspace Torpedo
Romulan Hyper-Plasma Torpedo
Tricobalt Torpedo
Temporal Disruption Device
Bio-Neural Warhead
Nukara Web Mines
Subnucleonic Beam 3
Scattering Field 3
Photonic Fleet 3
Nimbus Pirate Distress Call
Quantum Singularity Manipulation
Wheeeeeee!
*calls for SNB*
Nuked, scanned, tif, gravitoned, blackballed, ams
>=]
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
It usually takes 2-3x SNBs, basically everything on the hotbar saying it will be available sometime tomorrow...
...or you can just use Phased Polarons.
Not joking in the least. Phased Polarons are the leading cause of my death on Willard.
It's kind of funny how messy the screen gets when I'm scrambled or AMS'd...I still don't like that it reveals a cloaker to folks. I guess the reasoning is it screws up FoF transmitters; but it generally results in dropping Photonic, Nimbus, Warp Shadows, and hitting QSM (the +100 to Sensors in addition to what he already has cuts the duration down).
But yeah, stacked SNBs has been the bane of all my "Wheeee!" toons - but yeah too, Phased Polarons have normally been the weapons with the best chance of killing him.