Crystalline Conflict tweak for Casual/restoring casual play

[Elfidan]

While I haven't seen evidence of the first part myself, but I pretty much agree with your sentiments regarding the need for it.

[Atreus]

I'd like everybody in the game to actually have a hidden elo rating so that the matchmaker could take it into account even in casual

My experience is that it already exists. Dunno if it's based on someone's actual tier in ranked or number of wins, but I am regularly pit against other crystal players when they're in queue, and not because of role balancing.

[Taketori]

I think I have a better idea
They should add a mode where you can't be matched with players at platinum rank or above.
That way you can enjoy the game with players of a similar skill level, and not have to worry about the sweaty try hards that would otherwise be playing ranked, if they could actually get a game.
Hmm

[yaba_gabagool]

Honestly, I enjoy ranked just for the joy of climbing ranks. Do I wish it had more rewards that were cool? Sure do.

But is there joy in just playing ranked and seeing how far you can get and improving as a player? Sure is.

The reward can also be about how good you can get. And just a hint, being good isn't just about niche knowledge on your class, it's about knowing overall decision making that can be applied to many games.

[Commander_Justitia]

In Feast you got easily a 70-90% winrate as healer in casual mode (if it even popped). Now I am happy if I can stay at 50-60% in CC.
You trying to tell me that ranked people ruin the game for casuals, when in reality, casuals ruin my winrate in casual mode way more. xD

I agree it is dumb if multiple crystal/diamond players end up in the same team in casual queue, an algorithm could prevent it, but it shouldn't prevent matches from happening, if no better matchup can be made.

[Malganis_L]

One could argue if the High rank Players "invade Casual" than the Casual should invade low rank... at least they are mostly save there than...
...
(Boi as if escaping Bronze hell isnt luckbased enough already.... ranking system just doesnt really work in low rank CC...)

[Nubrication]

If one has played enough CC, they will have noticed that people who are in the deep end of playing ranked CC (which to keep things civil I will just say that I have no interest in Ranked until PvP is overhauled) sometimes decide to go and punch down on people that just want to play casual, effectively raiding the casual queues and ruining it for those who just want to do a 5v5, maybe win, maybe lose, have some fun, earn some tomes.

A fair solution to help combat powergaming in casual CC would be that, when your team has the crystal in the enemy's checkpoint or beyond, your teams back-third of the whole field becomes some kind of poison zone for enemies, inflicting significant damage (5k damage per second regardless of shields) to any enemies that enter and remain in it. That may sound odd, but the point is that there shouldn't be any in it- the issue is that only overinvested powergamers from ranked, who do not belong in casual, would chase or hunt all the way into your teams backfield at this time, to get a kill while their team is fighting on the crystal on the opposite side. The poison zone at your base's end would disable if/when the crystal gets pushed back through the enemy checkpoint towards the middle and your teams base direction). The ranked-players-raiding-casual element that makes the experience unfun wasn't something you saw on day 1, but it's quite common now. Please recalibrate casual CC for casuals with this fix. No genuine casual players will be negatively impacted by this.

Where the 'poison' zones would reach when you have pushed the crystal into the enemy checkpoint or beyond:
Palaistra- From your base to the bottom of the stairs that touch the middle area. (and horizontally across the map either side, partially covering the speed zone yes).
Volcanic Heart- From your base to the top of the stairs that touch the middle area (and horizontally across the map either side, again covering some of the speed zone).
Cloud Nine- From your base to the bottom of both sets of steps that touch the middle area.
The Clockwork Castletown- Pretty much from your base up to the portal door ahead, and from here horizontally across 4 of the 5 flipboard zones and covering the checkpoint side.

OR OR, get this... maybe they should fix casual matchmaking so that people in crystal won't get any teammates below diamond or brand new players. Use a hidden MMR or something. It's not fun to kill less skilled players nor is it fun to get stomped because 1 guy doesn't know how to guard, sprint, recuperate, etc. A good game is when everyone is around the same skill level, win OR lose.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

OR OR, get this... maybe they should fix casual matchmaking so that people in crystal won't get any teammates below diamond or brand new players. Use a hidden MMR or something. It's not fun to kill less skilled players nor is it fun to get stomped because 1 guy doesn't know how to guard, sprint, recuperate, etc. A good game is when everyone is around the same skill level, win OR lose.

I'm sorry but you are living in lala-land if you think excluding high level players basically entirely from the casual pool is a good idea.

For starters either team can get access to high-performing players, so at worst it is is a diceroll. What should definitely happen is an even split in high performing players aka ELO balancing.

Second, why should I and many others get punished with having inhumane queue times in Casual mode just because we perform better in Ranked than many others? We want to have relaxing games too or be able to try other jobs than our mains.

If we want Crystal matchmaking, we will actually go and play ranked, your idea of seperation in casual is utter nonsense.

If you want us to stick more to ranked, incentivize us to be in Ranked, not punish our access to Casual.

[Myon88]

I'm pretty sure there's hidden SBMM in casual anyway, so the entire premise of the thread is questionable.

Any high ranked player queuing for casual will, without fail, be paired with the worst players in the queue. I'm sure some of you have noticed this when you bump into crystal+ friends queuing and rarely get placed in the same team.

CC is a mode that's difficult to carry but easy to throw in. The literal best player in the world would struggle to win a 4v5 match against average players. It's such a miserable experience that far from invading casual games, i consider it more like an act of charity for high ranked players to queue for casual at all.

[Nubrication]

I'm sorry but you are living in lala-land if you think excluding high level players basically entirely from the casual pool is a good idea.

For starters either team can get access to high-performing players, so at worst it is is a diceroll. What should definitely happen is an even split in high performing players aka ELO balancing.

That's where you're wrong, there is definitely some kind of matchmaking system going on but however it's done, it's not working. If you play a ton of casual games, you'll notice that if you have a crystal teammate (2 crystals including you), there's bound to be two crystal players on the other team. And there will always be another crystal player on the opposing team that'll never be paired with you, 6+ games in a row.

Second, why should I and many others get punished with having inhumane queue times in Casual mode just because we perform better in Ranked than many others? We want to have relaxing games too or be able to try other jobs than our mains.

That's EXACTLY my point, why should I have to go into casual and have to carry 4 players about 70% of my games just to win? I'm talking about players that play like silver or below. How is that even fun? And you seem to misinterpret what I mean by good games, I'm not talking about Crystal/T100 games where tanks can die faster than they can guard, all I'm asking is for people to know what guard, recuperate, sprint, and elixir are. Literally the bare minimum. If anything, I'll take gold players and above. I want games where I don't need to care about winning but that are still challenging and winnable. AKA "CASUAL."

As of now, most casual games consists of either getting stomped by 5 medicore players because team is worse or completely stomping the opposing team. I don’t care how good you think you are, it’s hard to carry 4 silver/bronze level players vs 5 gold/plat-level players. Point being, some casual games are more draining than ranked games. I'm 100% down for actual ELO balancing.