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Need for PUG only PvP queues
darramouss1
Member Posts: 1,811 Arc User
I enjoy PUGing as it's a method of play that suits my lifestyle. I like being able to drop in to a queue and having a quick shoot. When you drop in to a match where the vast majority of ships are PUGing you can quite often get some great matches.
Dropping in to a match where you're up against a pre-made team who do nothing but practice together, well, that's when PvP gets boring. There's nothing worse than playing a game knowing that your best option is just to in with no shields to get it over and done with quicker.
When this happens a few times I usually turn off the game and come back in a few days. I do, however, find myself in PvP less and less.
Sure, there are options for players like me. We can...
JOIN PRE-MADE TEAMS - For me, this game is a small part of my life. Me devoting the time needed to form a perfect pre-made team isn't going to happen as I have too many other things going on in my life, things that outrank this game. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one in this boat.
PVP BOOT CAMP - Again, time constraints. Not going to happen.
LEAVE PVP - Unless something is done about the sheer imbalance that occurs, I feel that this will be my best option as I'm tired of the frustration it causes.
Some people will say "then leave, we don't need you." Well, actually this game does need PUG players.
Cryptic has made it crystal clear that they'll spend money on developing the game in the areas that make them more money and the areas that attract more traffic. Currently PvP is a less traffic area. Losing players from it can only make Cryptic less likely to spend on it.
I've spoken to newish players who have tried a match in PvP and been destroyed before they know it by teams who perfect their timing to the nanosecond. They won't play again. There are PUG players like me who are toying with the idea that this game will have more longevity for us as a PvE game. How to rectify this? PUG queues only.
Yes, I can see that there will be people who disagree with me, but that's the nature of opinions. They never always see eye to eye.
On a side note, I can understand that being in a pre-made team that beats another pre-made team must be a rewarding experience. Being in a pre-made that annihilates a PUG team, though, where's the reward? Last season my hockey team played against a team of newish players and after 5 minutes we had 4 unanswered goals. The game felt wrong. We spoke to the new team and agreed that my team would play with one less player on the rink. The game became fun again for both sides and was one of my favourite games of the season.
Dropping in to a match where you're up against a pre-made team who do nothing but practice together, well, that's when PvP gets boring. There's nothing worse than playing a game knowing that your best option is just to in with no shields to get it over and done with quicker.
When this happens a few times I usually turn off the game and come back in a few days. I do, however, find myself in PvP less and less.
Sure, there are options for players like me. We can...
JOIN PRE-MADE TEAMS - For me, this game is a small part of my life. Me devoting the time needed to form a perfect pre-made team isn't going to happen as I have too many other things going on in my life, things that outrank this game. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one in this boat.
PVP BOOT CAMP - Again, time constraints. Not going to happen.
LEAVE PVP - Unless something is done about the sheer imbalance that occurs, I feel that this will be my best option as I'm tired of the frustration it causes.
Some people will say "then leave, we don't need you." Well, actually this game does need PUG players.
Cryptic has made it crystal clear that they'll spend money on developing the game in the areas that make them more money and the areas that attract more traffic. Currently PvP is a less traffic area. Losing players from it can only make Cryptic less likely to spend on it.
I've spoken to newish players who have tried a match in PvP and been destroyed before they know it by teams who perfect their timing to the nanosecond. They won't play again. There are PUG players like me who are toying with the idea that this game will have more longevity for us as a PvE game. How to rectify this? PUG queues only.
Yes, I can see that there will be people who disagree with me, but that's the nature of opinions. They never always see eye to eye.
On a side note, I can understand that being in a pre-made team that beats another pre-made team must be a rewarding experience. Being in a pre-made that annihilates a PUG team, though, where's the reward? Last season my hockey team played against a team of newish players and after 5 minutes we had 4 unanswered goals. The game felt wrong. We spoke to the new team and agreed that my team would play with one less player on the rink. The game became fun again for both sides and was one of my favourite games of the season.
Post edited by darramouss1 on
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Won't work well without balanced matchmaking, and a balanced matchmaking system doesn't need to separate PUGs and Teams, it'll happen automatically in the matchmaker where teams would get other teams if they're available. Unlike the current state where 1 team goes up against 1 group of pugs and another team gets another group of pugs. It's TRIBBLE, but separate queues isn't the answer.
Well, that's because MMORPGs are supposed to be team-based, and refusal to work as a member of the team instead of as an individual should result in poor showings. It's true of any MMO PvP where it's more than 1v1.
Mechwarrior Online Loading Screen Tip:
"Teamwork = Victory"
Why do some games and their players get it, while other games and their players do not?
+1
(/char)
It's about pre-made teams quite often build their teams so cohesively and so focused that no amount of PUG teamwork can crack them. Good on the pre-made teams for achieving their goals, but what about the goal of having fun for the PUG players?
I kind of lost track. I used to post all sorts of breakdowns on what it would mean to the number of queues, offer suggestions on how things could resorted to reduce the number while providing alternatives, and well...I'd type a bunch of stuff...over and over and over and over as these threads popped up over and over and over and over...
...I can't be bothered.
PUGs vs. Premades/Fleetmades/PUGmades is the least of the issues facing PVP in this game...
It usually alternates between this and FAW.
EDIT: a working in game voice chat system would go a long way to help pugs build teamwork.
Picture the forums. Picture ESD, Drozana, Ker'rat, Qo'noS, etc zone chat. Picture voice chat.
Joe Random says, "New target!"
F2/F3/F4/F5 (whichever Joe Random is)
Attack!
Tony Somebody says, "I need X!"
Say, "I got it!"
F2/F3/F4/F5 (whichever Tony Somebody is)
X!
Etc, etc, etc...
Pay attention. There's other folks on your team. There's other folks on the other team than just the target you're glaring at!
Blah, blah, blah...if folks even made the slightest effort to try...cause even in a PUG vs. PUG match, if one side is trying to work together and the other side is a bunch solo players lost in their own little worlds...yeah, take a guess how it ends, eh?
Said Kirk is usually the "zone chat guy" of that particular match, too. You know the one, who cries about every possible thing as the reason for his team losing.
Never once does the moron realize it was him.
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
dude, many other mmos have working voice chat and its not a big problem. In DDO it works great and because of it I was able to complete some really complicated quests because we could all communicate better.
It's only when people hide behind a keyboard that they feel they can be ******* and/or antisocial. Team chat isn't like ESD, Drozana, Ker'rat, and Qo'noS, why would voice chat be? It's not like DCUO where there is open voice chat (I turned mine off after, idk, the 5th burp....), it's five people simidependent on each other and there's also /ignore and a handy volume/mute feature.
Working voice chat would make pugging a lot more smother and promote team play, which are the 2 things premades/partialmades/whatevermade have as an advantage. If someone is too insecure to talk, just type...it's that simple.
on a side note, I'm actually convinced that some people in ESD, Drozana, Ker'rat, and Qo'noS don't actually play the game, but that's for a different topic.
My experience with voice comms over the years is that vast majority of people have zero comm discipline and are given to rampant noise...oft leaving one to want to take an aluminum bat to their faces to shut them up.
If you don't answer no to that then I think you're deluding yourself.
Is it so wrong to ask for a change that will enable EVERYONE to have a fair go at the game, not just the people who devote all their time to it? PvP shouldn't just belong to the elite, it should belong to everyone. It should be an experience that the entire player community can have a go and think, "that was fun".
If you disagree with the idea of separate queues but think it would be nice for everyone to be able to enjoy a nice PvP fight then please offer suggestions as to how this can be done. Sledging the original idea and not offering a meaningful suggestion really does nothing.
Thing is...it's not a new suggestion. Heck, it's not even something that would have been a necro to pull it from a previous thread suggesting it...or previous threads before that. It's something that's been brought up month after month, year after year. The threads go nowhere. Sometimes they disappear off the first page, sometimes it's the first couple of pages, sometimes multiple threads end on the same page...
...so it's not just writing the discussion off - it's just many folks have discussed it until they were blue in the face so many times now - they're a little jaded on the discussion.
edit: Heck, I just did a search for the keyword "queue" in the PvP forums (this would just be since they redid the forums back in 2012) with my name as the poster...and I've got 126 (would be 127 with this one) posts with the word queue in them. It's not a new discussion by a long shot...
I'm gonna save this reply to a .doc so I can just start copying and pasting.
The PvP population of STO is too low.
Not every team is a premade team. Sometimes it's just 2-3 friends who queued up in whatever they had.
Better matchmaking would be required to make sure matches in a pug queue weren't still lopsided. (I've been dropped into matches with up to 3 other Pandas on my team, and we didn't queue together. What do you think happened to the other PUG group?)
If we had better matchmaking, separate queues would be redundant because the matchmaker would prevent teams from facing pugs unless there were no other opponents for either. (See how that works?)
But let's start a the beginning: It's interesting that you don't mention the approach that was presented in a PVP guest blog not even a week ago. Maybe you missed it: Guest Blog on STO frontpage
After some general PVP talk, it explains the "Tyler Durden" approach (I still think that this is a really bad name that does not help promote the idea), which can be summarised as "balanced pug matches via private queues". Players from the PVP community set up private matches were the 10 players are being distributed among the sides not by fleets or pre-existing teams, but rather in an attempt to make the match as balanced as possible. And usually this works quite well.
A side effect of this player-driven effort is that it became obvious that a simple randomised pug queue would not help much because the chances to get massively imbalanced matches are too high unless one applies a better matchmaking algorithm. This has been mentioned in a previous answer:
You have to ask yourself what you want when you pug: Do you want balanced matches, or better chances to be on the side that is winning in a landslide?
If it is the latter, then yes, you want a randomised pug queue. But if it is balanced matches that you are after, then a better matchmaking system is needed; and this system could most likely work very well within in the current mixed queue. In a sense, a better matchmaking system means that we can eat our pie and keep it, too.
To summarise: Nobody is opposed to better balanced matches. (Seriously. I haven't heard about a single person who defended the current queues because they wanted to keep the imbalance and the easy wins.) But there are players who want to keep the ability to queue up with a friend or two and thus oppose pug-only queues. If you replace the very simplistic idea of a pug-only queue with the idea of a better matchmaking system that could provide balanced matches for all, no matter whether individual players, pairs, small groups, or even full premades, you can have the support of everyone.
(And if you wonder whether such matchmaking is even possible - yes, it most likely is. http://hilbertguide.com/leaderboard/balance.php shows that even a player-driven approach can work. If Cryptic really wants it, they have enough data on players to make it work.)
played in pug with people who do premades....they suck even more in pugs simply because they don't even bother to read the chat.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1025881&page=5
Last post was just a week ago. Most of us are seriously jaded with the topic.
Pug queues may help in the short run, but they will soon devolve into the same stuff the current queues are. Just that people will start complaining about good players instead of good teams, and accusations will fly around of people syncdropping and whatnot.
The only solution is a balancing system. And even that's no final solution.
There's also going to be all the intangibles or even tangibles that simply are not addressed because things are not written to any log...
Jerry is an awesome player...as long as Tom is there. When Tom is not there, Jerry's mediocre at best. Would the system thus just average it out? Cause then you're looking at yo-yo actual experience vs the expected performance. Tom's there, Jerry's rocking! Tom's not there, Jerry's being rocked!
Even in a PUG vs. PUG scenario, such things as that can become problematic. You have five folks on each side, where statistically they all appear to be matched up pretty well - but if the five on the one team have never even heard of the others while the five on the other team all know each other...that balanced match up is not likely as balanced as it would appear.
If you tackle it from mainly a premade angle though, where you're looking at not just individual ratings but also the team rating - wouldn't it give you a better opportunity to provide that balanced match?
But is there anywhere the population in PvP to support that kind of investment?
Because honestly, a team is a greater than the sum of its parts...so averaging out ratings isn't necessarily going to provide balanced matches.
There's nothing that Cryptic can do, imho, to address the plethora of issues in that regard. It's got to be players...which in the end basically means leaving the queues to die and getting involved as a community in various endeavors.
How can the community grow if the queues are abandoned...new players showing up to get slaughtered by those left trolling the queues? Pester Smirk, pester Trendy, pester Bran (he's still around)...get some more news out there about what's going on and what players can get involved in.
Etc, etc, etc...
...basically stuff that won't happen, as I'm over here because I'm trying to avoid posting in a thread in another section of the forums where folks are asking for even more automation. How long before we select a character to login, watch a cutscene, and pat ourselves on the back? Meh... freaking puppies with iPads will be playing this game within a year or two.
And we have the elite PvPers asking him to spend +10-20 minutes setting up private matches with TD and or pugging better with 'teamwork' whilst dismissing the need to make a threads about this topic because there bored of reading about it.
The OP is right, and if he makes the exact same thread tomorrow I'll support it. Blame the mods for not merging the topics of you have to but it of the biggest greviences lack of match making is pretty high on the list.
Dismissing the need to make new threads because he could have just posted in the old one. Both the OP and the mods could have done better. There is no need to make a new topic when there is a current thread that contains most of the arguments for and against.
The problem some of us note is that pug vs pug queues will not go very far into balancing the queues, although it will help slightly. It's not enough.
He's not the only casual player around. Virus is one. I count myself as one.
Also, as has been mentioned, wanting good match making is not the same as wanting pug queues alone.
There is no need to track teams. You track indvidual performance in terms of dps/hps (both self- and cross-healing), kills and maybe also something that resembles my "VapeScore". This is enough to balance most matches.
This problem can be eliminated almost entirely if the matchmaking is done by Cryptic instead of in a player-driven system. They have all the necessary data. They can calulate how well-placed the SNBs are, how good the glider/cpb/tachbeam is. They caneven track stats for character/ship pairs instead of just per character.
Do you have any specific examples in mind where it's really about the specific players and not just their roles? Obviously a dps player will perform much better if he has a healer keeping him alive. But it doesn't really matter if Era, Renim or Bieber has my back. Outside of some very specific situations (like two players playing together in the same room and communicating "offline") I feel that roles are much more important than names. But maybe I'm too old for this; I already find the current desire to have target callers in pugmades bewildering. Why would anyone have to call targets? One simply follows the leading dps player. And that one is easily identified by looking at the scoreboard after the first minute or so.
Of course there are problems that a simple matchmaking system won't resolve. But a purely random pug queue will perform even worse. So I'm not quite sure what your point is. "It won't be perfect, therefore it's better not to do anything at all."?
It seems to me that better matchmaking is the best easy option that is available. And if people started demanding better matchmaking instead of trying to push the few remaining team players out of the queues, maybe Cryptic would listen.
I'm not even sure that he would like truly balanced matches because in the current environment balanced matches tend to last quite long (at least if it's not only escorts in the match).
In other words: This game has obstacles to short, balanced matches that go far beyond problems with the queue system.
So you just ignore teamwork and experience?
Those aren't intangibles. They might not be things we can see, but they're not intangibles - precisely because Cryptic could possibly measure such things makes them tangibles rather than intangibles.
If there's somebody on my team that I recognize or on the other team that I recognize, I play at a different level than if I do not recognize (or do recognize and simply don't care, lol) the other players. I may play up or I may play down depending on the names I see.
If I've played with somebody, have an idea of how they play - what they do - what they need...then I'm going to perform better than if I'm with somebody that I've got no clue what they're going to do (and sometimes they've got no clue what they're going to do).
There's folks I know that I can bait into beating on me while ignoring the folks killing them. There's folks I know that if I go anywhere near them at less than 110%, I'm going to be grumbling while waiting on the respawn.
It's one of the reasons that I've enjoyed PvP so much for decades now - it's the variance...the dynamics. It's exciting. It's not something that you can apply statistical analysis and game theory to...because all of those variables are changing.
Heck, even getting into the more detailed aspects of the engine itself - much like there are better times to open boxes...there are better times to attack. It's a faulty engine, and that in of itself would be enough to skew any stats. The sheer amount of data you'd need to collect would be along the lines of the sheer amount of data you've collected over the years...not something that we'd see in a few days to weeks of play from somebody.
Again, you're dismissing teamwork and experience in saying you could take 5 random guys of X ability and pit them against 5 guys of X ability that always play together...c'mon, seriously. We're humans...we're not machines....
I remember back when I pwned all my friends at super smash bros melee we turned on handicap, made games a lot more balanced as every game I won I had my damage scaled down and took more damage. When I lost the handicap would adjust slightly further back.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.