PVP Crystalline Conflict do NOT need to be solo queue or full party queue

[Chasingstars]

Sort of. But that depends more on individual performance of People you have already encountered (and memorized) rather than a job thing. Most People are and always will be bad at PvP, simply because they dont intent to put as much effort into it as they do in other types of content which is both understandable and normal.

It is only annoying that they dont realize, is that RANKED GAMES are about INDIVIDUAL performance in a random enviroment. If you want to play with Friends, do custom matches, simple as that. I am sure that most casual Players out there have more than enough FC Members and Friends to do so and if you dont, just use the Partyfinder and find other Groups. Creating a PvP Team is still a thing as far as i am aware.

You even state it yourself, you have to hope the enemy team of randos are worse skilled than your team in terms of performance. And that is compounded on the RNG nature of the team comps.

[Fyce]

Let's start by saying that ranked is taken out of the equation for very obvious balance reasons. So we're left with unranked for premade play.

Going "it's fine if my team of 5 premades roflstomp 5 randos! I have the right to play with my friends!" is really not the way to go. Your demand to be able to play in a premade doesn't cruch the right for solo queuers to have their fun (which often start by not having an unfair matchup).
Spliting the unranked queue is also not a great idea. After the first wave of people trying PvP for a few days will have died down, it'll probably still be popular enough to get fast queues, but not enough to guarantee them if they were different queues.

So what now? Well, we actually can have a middleground where premade are allowed in unranked, without splitting queues, while also mitigating the impact on solo-queuers.
All it takes is a smart matchmaking system with these rules:

- You are allowed to queue as a premade group of 2 to 5 players.
- The matchmaking system will try to match you against a similar group in terms of premade/solo-queuers ratio. Possibilities are (1 is a solo-queuer, the others are premade): 2+1+1+1 // 3+1+1 // 4+1 // 5 // 2+2+1 // 2+3. The matchmaking system will try to have the same repartition in both teams.
- This means that the matchmaking system will make you wait for a set amount of time if no other group(s) of premades is available yet to be matched against (assuming you queue with a premade, obviously).
- If the matchmaking system did not find enough players to match you against the same party composition in terms of premade/solo-queuers, it'll try to launch a game the fairest way possible. This means that if there's currently a premade of 3 players and another premade of 4 players, both will fight against the other (after filling the rest of the spots with solo-queuers, obviously).
- If the matchmaking system did not manage to organize a fair game (example: only one big premade is queuing), the matchmaking will still launch a game by filling the spots with solo-queuers.

Example1 in sequence:
1. You queue as a group of 4 people.
2. The system finds another group of 4 people, fills the remaining slots with solo-queuers.
3. Off you go. Happy game.

Example2 in sequence:
1. You queue as a group of 4 people.
2. You wait 3-4mn (this is an example for the timers. It'll have to be fine tuned).
3. The system didn't find another 4 players premade, and is now trying to organize the "fairest" game it can.
4. The system finds a premade of 3 players, and another one of 2. You'll go 4+1 vs 3+2, as that's what the system found ready and is somewhat fair.
5. Off you go. Somewhat happy game.

Example3 in sequence:
1. You queue as a group of 4 people.
2. You wait 3-4mn (this is an example for the timers. It'll have to be fine tuned).
3. The system didn't find another 4 players premade, and is now trying to organize a fair game.
4. You wait 3-4mn again (this is an example for the timers. It'll have to be fine tuned).
5. The system didn't find any other groups to make a fair game. You'll go 4+1 vs 1+1+1+1+1
6. Off you go. Probably bad game, but at least people are playing.

In exemple3, the randos are probably going to get stomped, but since this system doesn't really make solo-queuers wait, their pain will be over quickly and they probably won't get matched against you again if you requeue at the same time.
So, they had a bad time, but you waited. Everyone's experience is certainly not great in that case, but at least everyone gets to play and know that the system tried its best.

You can even grant solo-queuers a bonus (Wolf marks, exp... whatever) if the system has to take the route of example 3. And the bigger the premade you're against, the bigger the bonus. Why not.

[Velnora]

I forgot that balance was taken into consideration after seeing some jobs limit breaks.

[ICountFrom0]

Example3 in sequence:
1. You queue as a group of 4 people.
2. You wait 3-4mn (this is an example for the timers. It'll have to be fine tuned).
3. The system didn't find another 4 players premade, and is now trying to organize a fair game.
4. You wait 3-4mn again (this is an example for the timers. It'll have to be fine tuned).
5. The system didn't find any other groups to make a fair game. You'll go 4+1 vs 1+1+1+1+1
6. Off you go. Probably bad game, but at least people are playing.

In exemple3, the randos are probably going to get stomped, but since this system doesn't really make solo-queuers wait, their pain will be over quickly and they probably won't get matched against you again if you requeue at the same time.
So, they had a bad time, but you waited. Everyone's experience is certainly not great in that case, but at least everyone gets to play and know that the system tried its best.

So, the solution to the worst case scenario is to make things worse... hrm, no...

How about if there's no groups to match you with, your even group is split into two groups against eachother, and any odd members randomly selected stay in the que?

[Fyce]

So, the solution to the worst case scenario is to make things worse... hrm, no...

How about if there's no groups to match you with, your even group is split into two groups against eachother, and any odd members randomly selected stay in the que?

The only "worse" it gets is that the premade would've waited a bit. Besides, knowing the system tried and that was the last resort definitly ease the pain for everyone as you can blame the situation on something specific instead of simply "bad luck". Also, emphasis on "last resort" that will only happen once in a while and will very likely not be the default. The previous gates that matchmaking have to go through are a good compromise for everyone. And again, a game is 5mn tops. Not that big of a deal.

Btw, this solution isn't new or original. It's used in a bunch of PvP games, especially mobas.

Also, forcefully splitting a group of players is probably not gonna happen for various technical reasons. But mostly because that's pretty much the opposite of what these players wanted. So not only they'd have waited, but also now not get what they wanted which was playing in the same group on the same side.

In short, that you had to type "worst case scenario" and the fact that the outcome isn't that bad all things considered makes me pretty confident about this kind of solution working as a compromise and handled by the matchmaking itself.

[Painx]

I honestly think this is more fair for solo, since the problem of team play was highly gate keeped by a small group that made PvP un fun to try and this has brought in new players in. Perhaps they can seperate the Team play with Solo ranked that way for those who just want to play with strangers can play with them instead of being targeted by a group of friends. This PvP style should not change unless they add a ranked team co op with other teams in seperation for solo Que. This was the major change to eliminate the gate keeping or trade wins as what the devs stated.

[Elesh]

Speaking from experience in other pvp games... 95% of the time people are incapable of telling when they're facing a premade. People just love to ascribe 'premade' as a justification for why they lost, because it's easier than accepting blame on their own performance.

[Ransu]

Speaking from experience in other pvp games... 95% of the time people are incapable of telling when they're facing a premade. People just love to ascribe 'premade' as a justification for why they lost, because it's easier than accepting blame on their own performance.

swtor players were notorious for this. You'd always see complaining in chat about premades and I'd look at the enemy team and its all random players lol. The opposite is also true that they never even think twice about the actual premade of casual players that they are beating because they don't notice premades when they are winning a match or when the premade is on their team.

I don't have a problem with ranked having a solo mode (though honestly at this point I don't think there really should be a ranked mode), but the unranked mode should absolutely allow groups.

[Elesh]

swtor players were notorious for this. You'd always see complaining in chat about premades and I'd look at the enemy team and its all random players lol. The opposite is also true that they never even think twice about the actual premade of casual players that they are beating because they don't notice premades when they are winning a match or when the premade is on their team.

I don't have a problem with ranked having a solo mode (though honestly at this point I don't think there really should be a ranked mode), but the unranked mode should absolutely allow groups.

Back when I used to play LoL, and WoW, and WC3, and heck... prettymuch every pvp game I've ever played... I used to play mostly solo(because my wife hasn't always been interested in the same games as me like she is now with ffxiv ). And I'd get accused of being premade with people all the time... at least once or twice a week.

And ya, exactly... the times when they have a premade who isn't being super obvious about it on their team... nope. The wins are because of their skill, the losses are because of some made up premade.

This premade panic is so ridiculous to me.

[Qeilos]

Back when I used to play LoL, and WoW, and WC3, and heck... prettymuch every pvp game I've ever played... I used to play mostly solo(because my wife hasn't always been interested in the same games as me like she is now with ffxiv ). And I'd get accused of being premade with people all the time... at least once or twice a week.

And ya, exactly... the times when they have a premade who isn't being super obvious about it on their team... nope. The wins are because of their skill, the losses are because of some made up premade.

This premade panic is so ridiculous to me.

I mean atleast with LoL theres websites that show when ppl are queued with friends, its helpful intel to know that Mid/Jng are duo so you can set up extra vision out of the assumption theyll try to make plays together.