Fixing boring unbalanced scenarios

[Genisaurus]

is there a time-frame for when the solo-que-only scenario will be implemented?

When it's done. It's not at the top of our priorities list, though it is high on it.

[th3gatekeeper]

I q up with 2-3 people a LOT. You would have to be an idiot (not saying you since we sort of agree) to not notice how a 12 man group can have 3-4 teams quite often. Oh 4 healers got in the game, why are there 3 teams one with 2 healers, and 2 with 1 and some random SM named Chinesehero asking in /4 for a guard/heal mid game... IT HAPPENS A LOT.

Ha! So true! This ix exactly why I just dont see the "PM Only Que" thing being the "solution". You will still have a group who tires to make an even balance (order): Knight/BW/WP/WH who then gets grouped up with another team of 4 running: 2 BW/DPS AM/RP who then also gets grouped with a 2 WH team, a random slayer and a random Engi who duo Qd.

So what you end up with is jambled mess of (usually) very little of 1 role (like tanks) in the above. Or sometimes youll get multiple groups who DO have Knights/tanks but then end up with no MDPS or something.... But they all qued with 2+ people....

Then, even if you DO get balanced teams, youll see 2 of the 3 healers sitting in a group by themselves healing some BW cause they all Trio Qued together. Ive even seen a duo team consisting of 2 DPS AMs PURPOSEFULLY leave and join "Group 4" by themselves just because thats what they wanna do... If you swap to group with them, even as a player who can help like a Knight, they just leave again.

now, will ANYTHING fix that? since they seem hell bent on putting their team at a disadvantage? Not really..

But lets pretend for 1 second that defense REALLY meant something. I could then see those 2 DPS AMs, rolling up to a back flag, capping it and making a LARGE contribution to the team if an effort wasnt made to re-capture that node quickly.

As it is right now, a node is capped and the zerg says "oh... we should probably go get that, ok, maybe after 10 more kills" and then they just re-zerg everything getting X kills along the way and didnt even notice a loss of points.

Having the caps should be painful if you lose, to the point that people should WANT to post defense up on them once capped.

[Penril]

Spoiler:

Thanks for the feedback on this. I guess I would encourage a slightly different approach. Just me though and we can agree to disagree and I am fine with that. But even duo/trio que against a full 6 man group is a DRASTIC difference.

You pointed out two people who can work together, talk etc etc is a drastic different compared to just a solo Quer. I would pose that its EVEN MORE of a difference jumping from 2-3 people to 6 people who can coordiate.

Lets assume you have a 1-1-1 qued together and get put up with an 0-2-1. You are now 1-3-2 against 2-2-2 that can communicate.

The 2-2-2 group is not only more balanced, but can focus and /assist better than two groups of 3 can. Hands down.

While sure, it eliminates the "right to complain" on the forums, you took no steps towards truly addressing the issue of the zerg mentality and balancing the games. I would wager, stacking up 3 2 man groups against a 6 man group, will probably all fair about the same.... Get demolished.

Why do you mention zerg mentality when talking about SCs? As for your post... Devs should not (imho) waste their time balancing what players can balance themselves. If a group joins a SC as a 1-1-1, that's THEIR decision. They have no right to complain if they end up against a 6-man and get stomped. If they want to compete then they should fill those 3 free spots in their group and get in Vent/TS.

Spoiler:

I just see one area on this game that I think could be improved, and increase the QoL and competitive games by simply just adding more weight to defense on points. Thats just for flag games.

Putting less on the actual kills, more on the objective, makes the game less about zerg kills and more about strategy on who/how to capture and THEN defend the node.

I mean reflect on RvR for a second. You capture a node, and have a window to defend. You rarely see players just zerg to every BO in RvR. Why? Because they are rewarded to defend it AND it locks meaning there is a finite window of time where you can focus on that node. Then everyone rushes to the other one, rinse repeat. It involves both offense (capping the BO) then defense (hold it for 3:00) to ensure victory.

I reflect in the same way, SCs dont necessarily involve this since you can zerg around, zerg node to node, get points for the initial cap, then kill farm for more points, and there is no penalty for leaving a node un-defended.

I think you got it all wrong. There is NO ZERG in SC. It is either a 12v12 or a 6v6. There IS a zerg in RvR though. And they do exactly the opposite of what you said: they ZERG from one BO to the other one, until they have 3-4 and then they zerg the enemy keep. If one of their BO's is being taken, then they zerg it and take it back.

You want to give less weight to kills... in a RvR game. I think it is pretty dumb already that you can have like 25 kills (and your enemies 0) yet you lose the SC because they PvE'd flags. And you want more of this? No. People should PvP in a PvP game (specially in a Scenario/Battleground of a PvP game).

I hope we get a solo-only SC soon (Khaine's Embrace would be awesome). That way, people who don't want to invest time on making a group (or simply don't want to PvP and just want to cap flags) can Q for it and have fun playing the game however they want. But please don't ruin the other SCs.

[Penril]

But lets pretend for 1 second that defense REALLY meant something. I could then see those 2 DPS AMs, rolling up to a back flag, capping it and making a LARGE contribution to the team if an effort wasnt made to re-capture that node quickly.

.

What makes you think those 2 AMs will change their behaviour just because objectives are "more important"? I bet they will continue playing as usual, doing their own thing, just trying to kill destro. Why would they suddenly care about their groupmates when they never did before?

[th3gatekeeper]

Why do you mention zerg mentality when talking about SCs? As for your post... Devs should not (imho) waste their time balancing what players can balance themselves. If a group joins a SC as a 1-1-1, that's THEIR decision. They have no right to complain if they end up against a 6-man and get stomped. If they want to compete then they should fill those 3 free spots in their group and get in Vent/TS.

Yeah I dunno about that man... Players CANT always balance this themselves. Playtimes have a TON to do with it. I play/have played at almost every different play time and what I have noticed is most people follow specific "play times" so if I am in a guild who is NA based, they will play NA times, but you get into NON-NA times and my guild isnt on, except maybe another 2-3 guys. So we trio Q for pvp... Run into a full PM and even FF /assisting cant bring more than a few guys down while their team farms us. Or vice versa. When my guild IS on, we will get 80+ kills in a praag game (we did this last night) with just a competent 6 man team. Was it fun? Sure for us! I can imagine getting kill farmed for ~ 15 minutes in Praag didnt leave Destro with a good taste in their mouth and I sure as heck noticed the que timer increase after that game since it was late at night....

Point being, you shouldnt (IMO) feel FORCED to only SC when your guild is on to run a premade. Thats kinda what RVR is - more or less requires large group of players and if you want GOOD RvR requires Speak/coordination ability.

I think you got it all wrong. There is NO ZERG in SC. It is either a 12v12 or a 6v6. There IS a zerg in RvR though. And they do exactly the opposite of what you said: they ZERG from one BO to the other one, until they have 3-4 and then they zerg the enemy keep. If one of their BO's is being taken, then they zerg it and take it back.

You want to give less weight to kills... in a RvR game. I think it is pretty dumb already that you can have like 25 kills (and your enemies 0) yet you lose the SC because they PvE'd flags. And you want more of this? No. People should PvP in a PvP game (specially in a Scenario/Battleground of a PvP game).

I hope we get a solo-only SC soon (Khaine's Embrace would be awesome). That way, people who don't want to invest time on making a group (or simply don't want to PvP and just want to cap flags) can Q for it and have fun playing the game however they want. But please don't ruin the other SCs.

See this is exact opposite of what I see, and im really surprised you think there is no zerg in SCs since thats is 100% of what I see. When I refer to zerg, I refer to 1 group running from point to point. Size is irrelenvant. If there are 8 people on each side in an SC, you usually see all 8 people run from node to node, sticking together. There is no "defense" required since even if the opponants backcap your node, no worries it takes them 30+ seconds to get it, we re-zerg and in <10 seconds get it back and they didnt really do anything or get anything for that and we didnt lose anything for that.

I agree its dumb players can just PVE and win, Ive seen it happen (more on destro than order) when I am on my Chosen Ill CONSTANTLY see games we lose 500-450+ but we had 30-40 kills and order had 6.... I also see the same the other way where I am on order getting SMASHED but we take 2-3 guys back cap, and get points.

Point is though, the only reason they have those kills is because its a zerg and they are not defending nodes.... If they defended nodes, it wouldnt be a 40-6 kill game but more even at maybe 30-20.


TLDR: Less points for kills, more points for defending nodes (ticks/sec) would be a GREAT way to help balance SCs so that the objectives are PRIMARY and not "secondary" to kills.

[th3gatekeeper]

But lets pretend for 1 second that defense REALLY meant something. I could then see those 2 DPS AMs, rolling up to a back flag, capping it and making a LARGE contribution to the team if an effort wasnt made to re-capture that node quickly.

.

What makes you think those 2 AMs will change their behaviour just because objectives are "more important"? I bet they will continue playing as usual, doing their own thing, just trying to kill destro. Why would they suddenly care about their groupmates when they never did before?

Nothing. I think they will continue to do what they want. But atleast this way if they go off on their own and cap a node it actually means something. versus right now, its pretty easy to just re-zerg that node, and the winning team didnt miss a beat....

If you put more emphasis on capping nodes and defending nodes, if those two DPS AMs DID go off on their own and took a node, it swings the battle much more. Or they may realize that destro left 3 guys to defend and re-group back with the group - or other players since there isnt any single guy just roaming around (like you find sometimes today).

So I can see multiple ways this would impact the "value added" of two "lone wolf" guys who go off by themselves for kills. Where as right now they add next to nothing in the way of value aside from a few points for a few kills + the occasional small tick for capping a node, which is then "countered" by how easy a zerg re-caps it AND gets kills doing it.

[Penril]

1) Players can balance this themselves. If they don't want to, that's a completely different thing.

2) You are not forced to run a premade. You can solo (i do it all the time) and win as much as you lose. Some people seem to imply that soloing = 100% defeat rate, which is a lie. The other side pugs as much as you.

3) You should google for the meaning of zerg. Size is relevant when using the word "zerg", and a 6-man is not a zerg.

4) Even if more points are awarded for defending nodes, a good 6-man will still stomp unbalanced groups. What makes you think a group of pugs will be able to coordinate better than a group in Teamspeak? I see it all the time in Nordenwatch, when a premade gets tired of "PvE monkeys" (that's how my group calls them ) and simply patrols between 2 flags.

[bloodi]

You are mixing scs where the winning side is winning by so much that they do not care about objective and just farm kills with the objectives not mattering.

The emphasis is already on the objectives, any side that is not chokeholding the other team near the spawn with all 3 bos capped will lose when the other team starts spreading and ninja capping.

So i dont really see this "objectives need to matter more" argument, they already matter a lot.

[Penril]

4) Even if more points are awarded for defending nodes, a good 6-man will still stomp unbalanced groups. What makes you think a group of pugs will be able to coordinate better than a group in Teamspeak? I see it all the time in Nordenwatch, when a premade gets tired of "PvE monkeys" (that's how my group calls them ) and simply patrols between 2 flags.

I'm quoting myself because i think this is very important and something that everyone should realize.

It doesn't matter if nodes are given more importance. It doesn't matter if the SC doesn't start until everyone is in. It doesn't matter if the devs make a bazillion changes trying to bring balance to the SCs. In the end, the balanced premade in Teamspeak will still stomp the pugs. Understand this, and realize that the only way to achieve this "balance" you all dream of is to form a coordinated premade of your own.


That, or wait for the solo-only SC.

[th3gatekeeper]

1) Players can balance this themselves. If they don't want to, that's a completely different thing.

2) You are not forced to run a premade. You can solo (i do it all the time) and win as much as you lose. Some people seem to imply that soloing = 100% defeat rate, which is a lie. The other side pugs as much as you.

3) You should google for the meaning of zerg. Size is relevant when using the word "zerg", and a 6-man is not a zerg.

4) Even if more points are awarded for defending nodes, a good 6-man will still stomp unbalanced groups. What makes you think a group of pugs will be able to coordinate better than a group in Teamspeak?

1) If you have enough players on, yes you can balance. But you ALSO have zero control over what other people bring to your SC.... If you bring balanced 2-2-2 and the other guys think it fun to que up with 6 BWs... Then you probably wont have the best time in that SC.... In fact I played several games last night where we had 6 BWs. We DID win some and we lost some as well... When we won it was because it wasnt against PMs and our group was ~4 players. When we lost it was against a PM, we stood ZERO chance against a melee train. Did we have control over that? Well... We brought a balanced group of 2 healers, 1 tank and 1 DPS.... So there wasnt much we could do to "balance" that considering there were <200 players on the entire server and not anyone else in our guild was on....

2) As do I. I mostly duo/trio Q for SCs since anytime we have 6+ players on we usually RvR. I would agree its about 50-50. Usually determined by class comp though and nothing we/I did in game... As I mentioned. I que up with a tank/healer. Sometimes we get next to zero dps classes and all tanks/healers. Thats gonna lose to balance nearly everytime. Now if it were a cap/contest game, tanks and healers could do very well together if they own nodes in defending them.

3) As for Zerg - I see this as a moot point. The PURPOSE behind the word was to describe the "loosely organized group of players with the goal of completing a task or series of tasks"... The "large" is in perspective.

Is a 6 man a "large group"? well it depends... are they attacking 3 guys or 20? Its somewhat relative. The POINT behind it was to say that CURRENTLY SCs end up being 1 group vs 1 group head to head. With the occasional stragglers roaming trying to get 1v1s or something.

Where, I think, a more appropriate/fun game would be to break those groups up a bit and attack/defend different points on the map. Not just have ONE group rushing around everywhere killing everyone. It requires more strategy and teamwork to require defense IMO.

4) NO. And we agree 100% I have said numerous times this isnt a way to make a PUG > 6 man group. But it IS a way to alleviate spawn camping. Will it still happen? Sure! But will PUGs be more tempted to leave spawn and TRY to kill if rather than a full 12 man team camping spawn its only 8 people because they wanted to leave 4 guys to defend the nodes they capped? Probably. Which it then becomes a 12 vs 8 @ spawn where the "advantage" is on the spawn guys...

Or say they DONT do that and have 1-2 guys roaming to defend... You leave yourself open for a backcap - which could cost valuable points and award valuable points.


Even if games where kills dont award ANYTHING towards the win, you will see guys who care to do nothing but kill farm.

If thats what people want, the DEVs should make a pure "slayer" gametype. When you include objectives, I would think and hope that objectives are worth more than kills. All I am saying is that I think the weighting is off a little bit, more points should be awarded for defending flags/nodes and make it punishing for a team who ignores defense just to zerg everything.

There are multiple ways to do this...