Degradation of average player skill: why the Scenario system rework is urgently needed

[Akalukz]

+1 as well.

My $0.02 (again) are the queue system is the least of the problems with scenarios. The folks working on them previously had a "hard core" approach to SCs that moved that made them into murder box simulators. This was, I suspect, a by-product of the ranked scene.

The original designers of the game had the right idea and the current custodians need to revert the changes from recent years.

1. Bring back all camp guards to make spawn camping potentially dangerous for the opponent. Also reward the team for guard kills. Yeah there will be some "rope-a-dope" players but it still promoted some kind of fighting at least.
2. Remove any barriers that might still exist. I honestly don't know if they are still there on things like Serpent's Passage as it was so bad I stopped doing that one months ago.
3. Revert the flag cap changes to Thunder Valley and Blood of the Black Cairn. Originally these SCs were, in particular, newbie friendly and it was possible for an out-matched side to score points if the other team refused to split up their uber six man.

Bottom line is stop listening to the "elite" PUG farmers who "just want a fight" and focus back on making SCs fun and approachable for all players. There will still be stomps but, in my experience, folks want to fight as long as they have some opportunity to make progress/score points.

this, but same for Riekland Hills as well. Get rid of twisting whateversuck it is.

[Akalukz]

there is no need to restrict grouping up (nor restricting solo/pugs tbf). premades and pugs and all this story is not a real issue (and never ever has been). thru years of weekly "premades vs pugs" threads its clear as night and day that there are no "premades" currently playing this game even, there are various "groups" of various levels of skills, and mostly, e.g. in 9 cases out of 10, those groups are not ranked ready.
it was also many times discussed that the main culprit and issue is a stomp. to fight stompy nature of sc&game mechanics its logical to introduce some kind of "comeback" mechanics which would help the underdog to fight back against the odds.

also very nice suggestion and mechanics are described here by buerdig (viewtopic.php?t=59312&start=20#p582213), finetuning aka-Saga like mechanics into SCs making it step by step more challenging for good group and easier for bad group/solo heroes/pugs could be best possible solution. can see it also benefiting "downtimes" outside of EU prime when there are literally no other people to form SC out of.

waiting in q is no go. it has been tested, discussed and i believe majority of team&community are strongly against it for obvious reasons.
however tho, MM cant work like it works right now opening new instance each time 6men presses "join q" button. thats insane

While I understand what you mean by saying "no premades" I don't think that's generally fair to say. I would assume you say it in the terms of actual skillfull premades existing who use all mechanics, are on discords etc, which is true - not many of them if any at all queue up.

It's more of a natural result of the years of skill degradation that Only has described, that now if you make a group of 6 - play the correct careers, use aoe builds, guard each other, that is already an overwhelming force against 90% of the opposition that will queue against you. There are also still massive skill gaps between /5 lfg premades too.

Personal example.:
Whenever I level a character with my guild we usually do it together, and the last time I leveled my Choppa we went undefeated for days on end farming 20-30 kills / match, no deaths in mid-tier with no effort or any special coordination. People logged off, logged over to curse us and so on. Were we actually playing skillful? No, not even close, we were full yolo - but it was a premade stomping midtier SCs for almost a week with barely any losses.
Is that a problem? I think it is - should we stop? Not a solution, since many do the exact same thing just to play the game with friends or level faster. Yet it chases players away in massive waves.

The average skill level has dropped so drastically, that unfortunately there is definitely a problem of solo players vs premades at the moment - and It needs to be addressed + also implement a comeback mechanic as you mention, I fully agree, but unless that comeback mechanic is brutally advantageous, I am not sure it's even enough with the current discrepancy.

I have already talked with Only about this in length in the past - I think this problem is so massive already, that it will need months if not years to fix the skill level gradually.

Those premades (like the one you were in) ALMOSt never fight each other. Why not fill scenario queues with premade groups on both sides instead of splitting them up and filling the other side with pugs.

I mean how many times has someone queued up solo and get all dps / tanks with no heals, so you swap to healer and then you get all heals and no dps. It happens WAY to frequently to be happenstance.

[Akalukz]

Not to spam post, but probably the most disappointing part of this thread is lack of Dev / Team response.

[nocturnalguest]

For an average player, discordant scenes are not much better than premade sc these days. Because of low pop, you often get 3-6 players per side. With such low numbers, a single BiS player can wreck **** on his lower-geared opponents, essentially being a 1-man premade. So casual people don't want to q discordant, making population even lower and worsening the problem. Negative feedback loop.

Pug sc work the best with 2+ parties on each side.

Harsh truth it is, but my pov is the same. Its indeed enough of 1 person being skilled&gear&stuff to completely turn the tides on discordant q.

[nocturnalguest]

Those premades (like the one you were in) ALMOSt never fight each other. Why not fill scenario queues with premade groups on both sides instead of splitting them up and filling the other side with pugs.

I mean how many times has someone queued up solo and get all dps / tanks with no heals, so you swap to healer and then you get all heals and no dps. It happens WAY to frequently to be happenstance.

What premades? Hazmy havent been a part of "premade". He is a casual player. Skilled. Knows things. Hazmy havent ever seriosly attend any RoR special community tournaments. Why do you even ask those questions? You do force Hazmy and people he plays with to play vs. e.g. Advar group? Why? How did you came up with idea that e.g. Advar team should obliterate casuals in e.g. rankeds (you didnt mention rankeds but anyways) and that would be fair in your pov? Why? Can you explain your self on a matter then you did touch people?

[An answer] Yes, that would be totally fair if people negotiate and make a deal. If all sides are fine with playing like that. Do you know how many loses it took for Evil's team to make a victory (not clear one) fighting this group? I do know (and everyone else who knows the so "sacred ultimate truth", its on killboard and rest is on discords/DMs).

Levels of delusion people are having are bothering me so much, that i cant resist to post on forums. Maybe a ban for me would be a nice rest...

More of that, how did you came up with idea that "premades" group never fight each other? Its actually absolutely the opposite, toptier teams have none to fight against, cause "badumtsss" - degradation of average player skill!!!!! Can you even imagine how many teams left because they've had nobody to fight with?! We are really should focus to solve this exact issue (beside numerous "bans for nothing" tho) but we have had amazing people here and there, and most are scattered. There is no Fusion, there is no TGA, there is no any real, amazing, skilled team anymore, even a guy in a cowboy hat no longer proclaims stuff. All are gone. Thats the biggiest issue.

Why not fill sc q? Because none will play, there will be no matches either for glorious&mighty&ultra skilled solo/pugs nor for filthy, dirty, sh** "premades". But you do raise a very old observation, once you log heal/tank then you end up being 5+ heals/no dps solo q. Hence many mention here transparency into a q, so players could at least fix this minor issue themselves.

Edit&P.S. and i no trolling, i really want to know. situation as Only states is absolutely dire. something has to be done. if we e.g. get theorical TGA to log again, then yeah, that would be an indicator

but all the "pug life" (here ill use harsh words, dont take them to a heart tho, as i dont aim into anyone specifically) - without proper teams, without decent people, without Skills being a thing - it will all only degradate.

[Akalukz]

Of course it is a premade, he made the group before queueing.. IE PREMADE :0 (edit) you are saying he shouldn't have to fight Advar, yet its ok to fight newbs solo queuing with 0 heals etc.

If players that were really looking for 6v6 fights have truly left the game, then they didn't really want a fight. 6v6 fights are easily scheduled in GvG ranked. No season needed last I checked. They leave because they don't really want competition.

Hazmy, was stating how they went undefeated. Is that fun? Nope its not, neither is going winless. That's the problem. Why do you think group ranked is dead? It's not because of lack of skill. It's cuz they are afraid of getting beat by another, so they go beat up solo / pugs / chan5 groups and get bored and say how great they are.

This is not a dig at hazmy or anyone else in particular, it's a general observation. how often does the ranked group queue fire off? that is your answer to how I came up with " premade group never fight each other", you can find them farming pugs / solos.


I would honestly like to see more variation in queue systems.

1v1
2v2
3v3
6v6
12v12
24v24

Everything else should fit into a solo queue that is 2/2/2 up to 6/12/18/24 groups

[Martok]

Wow.

Okay and how would a dichotomy of solo and "premade" further this incentive?

Correct me if I am wrong but as I understand it, for as long as this game has been active and available to play both solo players and those players part of a premade have been allowed to enter the ORvR zones and thus, by default, establishing the fact both the dichotomy you cite and the incentive to play was embedded in the system from the start. Your suggestion was to eliminate that option and force everyone to join warband in order to enter an ORvR zone.

Your comment I responded to read, quote: "Only full warbands should be allowed to enter ORvR."

How would that work, exactly? Suppose a full warband rolls out into the ORvR zone and suddenly one of the players leaves. Does the remainder of the warband get kicked back to the Warcamp? Or, are they given one minute to find a replacement? Remember, you very clearly stated "Only full warbands should be allowed to enter ORvR," thus forcing everyone into one playstyle option: IF you want to fight in the ORvR zones, you MUST be in a warband.

As for the rest of your scattershot pronouncements, I did not say anything about 'discordant,' or regen builds, or the number of premades which may or may not currently be running about. I addressed the singular point you made, which again read, quote, "Only full warbands should be allowed to enter ORvR."

Which was, in context of incentivizing players to continue to play the game, an incredibly bad idea. It would constitute the ultimate in forced playstyle and drive even more players from the game.

And if people were allowed to play their own play style everyone would come back and love the game?

Why are multiple spec options for each particular class a thing? Why not for, say, tanks, just have one S&B spec option and that's it. I mean such would certainly augment your idea of only being allowed into an ORvR zone if and only if you are part of a warband.

And yes, allowing players to play their own specs and styles would be, and always has been, preferable to playing what and how someone else tells you to play. I mean damn.

If you sincerely believe it would be more fun to play a full annihilator slayer vs a full regen WE than a "full sov premade", it might be worth revising that thought.

Actually I do think it is more fun to play X v X as opposed to X v The Blob, and got my SM up to RR90 doing just so.

Hybrid healers are the apex predators because they can "HoT and DoT" on the move.

Sincere question. Is that a new thing? Hybrid healers could never HoT and DoT before?

[Martok]

There will be no SCs if "premades" (by your very tricky definition) will dissappear. That simple.

Admittedly I haven't read every post in this thread however I do not believe people have been soliciting for 'no six-man premades' in SC's. Rather the issue was a system which places such groups against each other as opposed to placing them against the solo and casuals queing for SC's.

[tefnaht]

Hence many mention here transparency into a q, so players could at least fix this minor issue themselves.

Probably it would be like xRealm thing, people on forum talk about "we will balance the situation", people in game just snowball pop on superior side. If see org party on your side - enter q, see no org party - avoid the q.

[crystl32]

i can't confirm 1 win out of 10 in sq Oo
i can't confirm getting your face bashed in in SCs just because you are a new player.
i cannot remember "investing" into new players. we allow them to tag along, learn and have fun with us until they lose interest and leave.
i can't say that scenarios put me where I am today. it has mostly been soloing and playing with friends in small grps/exchanging ideas and strategies/doing testing with friends that taught me everything. and ofc learning from mistakes and opponents.

lots of your claims look wild to me and i dont trust them.

i see the main problem in being without guidance after leaving T1 and a power difference which is based on gear/knowledge. pairing newbs with vets leads to a frustrating experience that fends off newbs.
lots of veterans btw. also lack skills/knowledge (some of them still dont know to stop when gork sais so). some people just never learn.
itsa mix of unfair pairing due to low player numbers and casualism.
a typical disease of dead mmos
i whis you amazing day!