What about Renown change in sc?

[Sulorie]

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Increasing the amount of 'participation' rewards gives your casual working dad a reason to log in and play the game. It doesn't take anything away from your elite sweaty hardcore gamer. In fact, it makes the game better for your elite sweaty hardcore gamer because he has more people to fight.

I thought we aim to separate casual working dad's from sweaty hardcore gamers?

[nocturnalguest]

That's certainly the game design philosophy the developers have followed and how they've designed the game. Unfortunately, that's very short-sighted because it severely limits the number of players who can enjoy the game and we're seeing the results in the population.

Your average casual working dad isn't going to spend a significant portion of his one-hour nightly playtime to make a group. He doesn't have the time, energy or desire to get into a group, much less make one. He's going to log in, queue for scenarios, get stomped, and then log out. Most will eventually quit. Some percentage of your average casual working dads will come and post on the forums, get the exact same response you just wrote and decide this game isn't for them.

And they're right. It isn't for them. But it could be.

I consider myself average casual working dad with 3 kids and 5/2 being on a job for ~9-10 hours. I usually play ~1-3 hours a session inconsitantly at least 2 days per week, sometimes not logging for 1-2 months or even longer.

I have absolutely 0 problems grouping up in this game, most of my friends here that i know well are also average casual working dads, i played with alot of people here and hang in lots of RoR discords, alot of people there are also average casual working dads. I did try out each possible game mode and had absolutely no problems to join anything if i wanted to.

The only small exception is that im more or less somewhat able to log for 1-1,5 - 2 hours during a day sometimes from work. That helped me to fort/city log back in a day.

I refuse to accept that such game modes as 6v6, cities sieges, premade PvE are not for me. I did them, i do them and i find them fun enough in proper conditions for me to log and play. So i disagree with your points and strongly believe that my own experience shows otherwise

Last thing i'd do is to post a rant about balance on forums based on me being stomped somewhere...

[georgehabadasher]

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Increasing the amount of 'participation' rewards gives your casual working dad a reason to log in and play the game. It doesn't take anything away from your elite sweaty hardcore gamer. In fact, it makes the game better for your elite sweaty hardcore gamer because he has more people to fight.

I thought we aim to separate casual working dad's from sweaty hardcore gamers?

Ideally, we wouldn't want them facing each other in the same scenario 100% of the time. That doesn't mean they can't both play on the same server.

The reasoning behind increasing participation rewards for scenarios is three-pronged.
1) It allows players to receive rewards even when they lose.
2) This will cause more players to queue even when they perceive the other side has the advantage.
3) This will increase the player pool for scenarios, allowing the matchmaking system to work properly.

@Nocturnalguest
While that may be your experience, and it's certainly a valid one, I think it's productive if we accept that other players have different experiences than we do, even while playing the same game. I'm not saying it's generally impossible or even difficult to find groups in this game, though it can certainly be difficult when it's not European primetime. It can also be difficult for players who have limited time and/or aren't as social.

I believe those people should still have the opportunity to enjoy the game, and I believe that some changes to game mechanics can allow them to enjoy it without compromising the experience of the group-minded players.

For the record, I'm not arguing on my own behalf. While I enjoy a nice pug scenario now and then, I am grouped more often than not. I just think the game would benefit by attracting more players, whether they're casual working dads or elite sweaty hardcore gamers.

[Yaliskah]

My idea ( that no one likes) : Put everyone a kind of "weight" (on the base of ??), then matchmake the game to have an equal weight on both side. You encounter a premade with a total weight of 2500pts? Put as much as needed players in opposition to reach the same weight, even if it means a 6 vs 9 scenario. At some point it is more or less the system warhammer use on its boardgame. According the pool at any moment of the day, a real matchmaking would lead to pretty rare sc pops.

This way, i think -but i may be wrong- all scs would be more challenging/balanced for everyone.

[thiefy]

Spoiler:

My idea ( that no one likes) : Put everyone a kind of "weight" (on the base of ??), then matchmake the game to have an equal weight on both side. You encounter a premade with a total weight of 2500pts? Put as much as needed players in opposition to reach the same weight, even if it means a 6 vs 9 scenario. At some point it is more or less the system warhammer use on its boardgame. According the pool at any moment of the day, a real matchmaking would lead to pretty rare sc pops.

This way, i think -but i may be wrong- all scs would be more challenging/balanced for everyone.

I agree that this is an ideal solution IF you can find the right scale. I can only imagine the desperation of the guy who writes the code that can take into account all the variables, give the the appropriate weight to each factor and ofc produce scenarios pops in acceptable intervals considering the current population. Poor guy will spend a lifetime to make the alpha version and then will go to a therapist to overcome the depression caused by our criticism.... (Internet communities ftw)

[bw10]

My idea ( that no one likes) : Put everyone a kind of "weight" (on the base of ??), then matchmake the game to have an equal weight on both side. You encounter a premade with a total weight of 2500pts? Put as much as needed players in opposition to reach the same weight, even if it means a 6 vs 9 scenario. At some point it is more or less the system warhammer use on its boardgame. According the pool at any moment of the day, a real matchmaking would lead to pretty rare sc pops.

This way, i think -but i may be wrong- all scs would be more challenging/balanced for everyone.

i spent two minutes on how to approach this and it would be an absolute nightmare to implement.

the weight idea is good but keep it simple. winning scs within a group gives everyone a point. consecutive wins are worth 2 points. the premade would have to face progressively harder scenarios with more players on the opposing site until they lost and their points reset

[Yaliskah]

My idea ( that no one likes) : Put everyone a kind of "weight" (on the base of ??), then matchmake the game to have an equal weight on both side. You encounter a premade with a total weight of 2500pts? Put as much as needed players in opposition to reach the same weight, even if it means a 6 vs 9 scenario. At some point it is more or less the system warhammer use on its boardgame. According the pool at any moment of the day, a real matchmaking would lead to pretty rare sc pops.

This way, i think -but i may be wrong- all scs would be more challenging/balanced for everyone.

i spent two minutes on how to approach this and it would be an absolute nightmare to implement.

the weight idea is good but keep it simple. winning scs within a group gives everyone a point. consecutive wins are worth 2 points. the premade would have to face progressively harder scenarios with more players on the opposing site until they lost and their points reset

I'm probably wrong and my reasonning is maybe flawed, but according kilo of feather is worth a kilo of lead, if you leverage a scenario on the base of the win/loss ratio (or the personnal mmr) of players more than on the numbers on each sides, i don't see what is complicated. MMR system is already implemented. Point is just forgetting to insist to have an equal number on each side to provide some "power" balance.Ofc, a team of mighty players will reach at a moment a limit they would eventually lose. But if they lose vs 12 players for exemple, can it be called a loss? . If it happens, then their MMR decrease a bit and on next Sc they would face an equal amount of power than their side. So i don't get your point about harder and harder. Imo, it should be balanced, and bring to a small solo players a chance to compete alongside "monsters" and progress.

[Nefarian78]

My idea ( that no one likes) : Put everyone a kind of "weight" (on the base of ??), then matchmake the game to have an equal weight on both side. You encounter a premade with a total weight of 2500pts? Put as much as needed players in opposition to reach the same weight, even if it means a 6 vs 9 scenario. At some point it is more or less the system warhammer use on its boardgame. According the pool at any moment of the day, a real matchmaking would lead to pretty rare sc pops.

This way, i think -but i may be wrong- all scs would be more challenging/balanced for everyone.

This is a grossly overengineered solution that doesn't even fix the actual problem. The problem isn't premades, it's lack of rewards for average players which led into a drastic drop in people playing scenarios which lead to discordant dying thus making what few pugs remain to queue into premades 75% of the time

Crests/rr gains are borderline pathetic for full 6mans with near 100% win rate as is when compared to roaming, now put yourself in the shoes of the average joe that can barely reach 50% win rate. They are getting extremely poor rewards when they win and literally nothing half the time for a high-activity gamemode that requires constant focus the whole time.

Now tell me, why would anyone care to play that? You can afk your way through entire zonelocks in pugbands and get twice as many crests from the kills only aswell as more crests from zonelocks AND even more crests or genesis from bags. Fix the rewards, more interested people get involved, discordant pops, nobody complains about sc rewards and premade stomps anymore.

This problem has been brewing for years and yet nothing was done to fix it because players need to "earn" their rewards. And yet every other change in the reward structure only butchered scenarios to herd people into playing like brain afk bots in RvR and get rewarded just for having a pulse

How ironic.

[Sulorie]

Now tell me, why would anyone care to play that? You can afk your way through entire zonelocks in pugbands and get twice as many crests from the kills only aswell as more crests from zonelocks AND even more crests or genesis from bags. Fix the rewards, more interested people get involved, discordant pops, nobody complains about sc rewards and premade stomps anymore.

Uhm, I make the opposite experience in pug warbands. Hardly any kills compared to death rates as it highly depends on what random group you are in and how capable your DD are. Almost no group support, you literally have to beg for buffs. No reliable guarding, when you happen to have a tank in group.
And so much more competition for rolls.
6man with insta pops and high win rate makes lots of kills for crest drops and 4 minute sc due to surrender gives frequent crest rewards. In RvR you have to wait a lot and search for enemies.

[Helwer]

Thinking about that stuff i got 1 more suggest: As we have both systems make both mandatory - discordant for solo / pugs with a weekend-edition to get rewards and all other sc make mandatory to join que as a full group. So it is on the players to build whatever they want, or they know they shall not play that part of the game better because it is wrong for solo/pug.

Nobody complains about premades, nobody has to blame other they "play the game wrong, cause it is group-based". You will always get 6vs6, 12vs12 or 18vs18 with what you've built. When scenarios are ment to be played as premade group and the match-making is too hard otherwise, why not make it requirement to join at all?