Fixing boring unbalanced scenarios

[peterthepan3]

being stomped is the best way to learn, imo. you learn very quickly: what comp beat you; what classes beat you; what synergies were used to beat you; what you did wrong. a player with a brain can then go home, do their homework, and adapt. however most players simply act nonethewiser and rinse/repeat the entire process to no avail

[Idrinth]

being stomped is the best way to learn, imo.

Getting stomped is the same for you and me I hope? barely managing to use skills before your death?

you learn very quickly: what comp beat you; what classes beat you; what synergies were used to beat you; what you did wrong.

That happens if you lose and have the time to see the synergies and what you did wrong, not when you are stomped.

however most players simply act nonethewiser and rinse/repeat the entire process to no avail

Might be related to stomping not giving them the option of learning Had a t2 scenario yesterday, where people first ran away from my tank when I switched guard to them, but then (likely) noticed that they survived longer with me in range(at least that is what it looked like). Main reason for that learning to work is, that they actually had the time to react, didn't die instantly - thanks to the healer and the side's setups.

[Razid1987]

being stomped is the best way to learn, imo.

Getting stomped is the same for you and me I hope? barely managing to use skills before your death?

He's talking about looking at the enemy: Do they have a lot of Choppas? Are they using 2-handers, or double wield? What abilties do they use? What spec are they? How does that work in synergy with the rest of the group? And if you look them up on the armory, what kind of stats and bonuses are they going for? There are a million things like this that you can learn. Yet, you just talk about how fast you die, as if there's nothing to be learned.

you learn very quickly: what comp beat you; what classes beat you; what synergies were used to beat you; what you did wrong.

That happens if you lose and have the time to see the synergies and what you did wrong, not when you are stomped.

You always have the time to see the synergy. If you get mangled by 3 Slayers in a matter of seconds, then there's a lot you can learn from that: A) Maybe you were out of postition. B) Slayers **** hurt. 3) Stacking Slayers in SCs might actually be good.
What you do then is trying to stack slayers yourself and see how that does, until you face someone who wrecks you again, and repeat that process until you have a overall feeling of how the balance is.

however most players simply act nonethewiser and rinse/repeat the entire process to no avail

Might be related to stomping not giving them the option of learning Had a t2 scenario yesterday, where people first ran away from my tank when I switched guard to them, but then (likely) noticed that they survived longer with me in range(at least that is what it looked like). Main reason for that learning to work is, that they actually had the time to react, didn't die instantly - thanks to the healer and the side's setups.

Might be related to people not willing to see and learn from what's right in front of them

We're not talking about the basics of guard-range. Hell, if you're playing with people who don't even know or do that, then you're officially screwed. But then again, I'm on teams with people who don't know about guard all the time. That doesn't stop me from trying to learn and improve. It sounds a lot like you either don't get what we are talking about when we talk about learning, or that you just refuse to try to improve and get more knowledgeable about the game, with what works in certain situations and what doesn't.

[Idrinth]

being stomped is the best way to learn, imo.

Getting stomped is the same for you and me I hope? barely managing to use skills before your death?

He's talking about looking at the enemy: Do they have a lot of Choppas? Are they using 2-handers, or double wield? What abilties do they use? What spec are they? How does that work in synergy with the rest of the group? And if you look them up on the armory, what kind of stats and bonuses are they going for? There are a million things like this that you can learn. Yet, you just talk about how fast you die, as if there's nothing to be learned.

Yes, I consider that not helpful for learning, since you lack options to experiement and see if it improves the results. Noone will jump from being stomped to similar level just by looking up players.
After you got the basics down, having a look at specs and gear is interesting, but that will be largely dictated by the group you got - and having the benefits of a group visible also takes a chance at seeing them, as in more time until you are killed.

you learn very quickly: what comp beat you; what classes beat you; what synergies were used to beat you; what you did wrong.

That happens if you lose and have the time to see the synergies and what you did wrong, not when you are stomped.

You always have the time to see the synergy. If you get mangled by 3 Slayers in a matter of seconds, then there's a lot you can learn from that: A) Maybe you were out of postition. B) Slayers **** hurt. 3) Stacking Slayers in SCs might actually be good.
What you do then is trying to stack slayers yourself and see how that does, until you face someone who wrecks you again, and repeat that process until you have a overall feeling of how the balance is.

That already is way, way ahead of the boring, unbalanced stomping. This already is a semi-regular group to start there. I agree, that this group will need to experiment and adapt, but that is a few steps ahead.

however most players simply act nonethewiser and rinse/repeat the entire process to no avail

Might be related to stomping not giving them the option of learning Had a t2 scenario yesterday, where people first ran away from my tank when I switched guard to them, but then (likely) noticed that they survived longer with me in range(at least that is what it looked like). Main reason for that learning to work is, that they actually had the time to react, didn't die instantly - thanks to the healer and the side's setups.

Might be related to people not willing to see and learn from what's right in front of them

i guess, from what i saw the same people continued the trend of being guardable in later scenarios, so might just not have been visible enough.

We're not talking about the basics of guard-range. Hell, if you're playing with people who don't even know or do that, then you're officially screwed. But then again, I'm on teams with people who don't know about guard all the time. That doesn't stop me from trying to learn and improve. It sounds a lot like you either don't get what we are talking about when we talk about learning, or that you just refuse to try to improve and get more knowledgeable about the game, with what works in certain situations and what doesn't.

If you are getting stomped, that usually means we have basics like guard range to worry about. Few groups stomp people that at least know the basics and play with each other - they would still win, but stomping is less likely.
Besides my swordmaster(that is mostly played in off-hours) I'm usually running grouped, so I certainly got the basic idea there
I am not debating that you can learn from defeats, I'm debating, that being stomped does not provide the space needed for learning, since experimentation fails at the basic level of "not enough time until I'm dead again"

[freshour]

I think we need to realize that some people just want to be seen as awesome. Want no adjustments for newer players to learn/catch up because they were not given that option themselves. So rather than encourage the system to help people learn, they want it to be like they had it. It happens a lot and is pretty sad. Sure there are times when it really is better to find out. But I'm sure a lot of terminal cancer patients wish they hadn't.

[tomato]

Rewarding people for playing bad won't help them to get better.

[mindmelt]

Rewarding people for playing bad won't help them to get better.

maybe

[incredible]

Bad players do not learn from being spawn camped in a scenario. They do not learn from being so unbelievably out-matched by a premade that they do not even have the ability to inflict 10% of damage to a single player before being insta-killed.

The issue is still premades vs. pugs. You could take any organized guild on this server, and have them play five magus and one healer. They would still stomp pugs. Based on comments like Razid said, pugs would then walk away from this experience thinking that "stacking magus" is good. It isn't the class, it is the coordination and organization of six people playing together vs the majority of solo que pugs.

Despite all of the discussion that would leave you to believe everyone runs around in 6 man guild groups, the reality is that only a minority of the population does this. Most are just pugs. Give them an avenue to learn and play the game on the same level as other pugs. A solo que scenario. You won't see these threads if pugs have a scenario where only other pugs are playing. And yes - in that scenario, when you win or lose, you can truly take away lessons about what you individually are doing wrong because all are on equal footing.

In a premade vs. pug, it doesn't matter how great you individually play. Unless you have five other people playing with you in voice-chat coordinated gameplay, you have almost zero chance to affect any outcome on the opposing premade. You learn nothing from this, except go get five more friends to play with. If you can do that - great. And once you do, go play some group v group scenarios. In the meantime, if you're just the average pug, create an avenue for pugs to play against one another. mho

[freshour]

@incredible - although you make perfect sense and used a lot of logic... you will be met with "L2P bro" people who don't care about the server population. They just want to gank pugs because they were once on the other end of that... That is what it really boils down to.

[th3gatekeeper]

He's talking about looking at the enemy: Do they have a lot of Choppas? Are they using 2-handers, or double wield? What abilties do they use? What spec are they? How does that work in synergy with the rest of the group? And if you look them up on the armory, what kind of stats and bonuses are they going for? There are a million things like this that you can learn. Yet, you just talk about how fast you die, as if there's nothing to be learned.

Yeah, so you can learn the "Strategy" for when you reroll destro and level a Choppa! Duh! It wont help you on your main, say BW, but whenever you decide to roll a Destro Choppa, knowing what stats and weapons to use will TOTALLY help you not suck!

You always have the time to see the synergy. If you get mangled by 3 Slayers in a matter of seconds, then there's a lot you can learn from that: A) Maybe you were out of postition. B) Slayers **** hurt. 3) Stacking Slayers in SCs might actually be good.
What you do then is trying to stack slayers yourself and see how that does, until you face someone who wrecks you again, and repeat that process until you have a overall feeling of how the balance is.

Hmmmm.... Synergy.... Get a melee train and spawn camp while ignoring the bauble. Yeah, perfect strategy! Kids, this is a perfect example of what you should be taking notes from. Keep QUing for SCs until you get against opponants with no tanks. Then just melee train all over them at their spawn! For, you know, when you re-rolled that Choppa after you got stomped on your BW in spawn, because you can learn moves/stats to stack from watching them kill farm you!

"Stacking yourself" only works if you get a full party together. Or say you DO stack full slayers, but then get paired with 3 other slayers in your SC and end up with 6 and only 1healer and 1tank.... My guess is you will probably lose.

Sadly balanced comps are what determine good games.

Get in a bauble match with 1 healer? your gonna lose.
Get in a nordenwatch and only have 1 tank and 1 MDPS? You will probably get run over without more melee presence.

The sad truth is that most of the games are not full premades and are not very well balanced class wise. This is going to be the biggest decider in the game. Trying to learn how to play a BW or Engineer for example, you wont learn ANYTHING if all you have time to do is cast 3 spells before 2 MDPS and 2 Tanks push your party back and force you to run away from lack of melee presence.