Failing to address multiplayer in PVP is a mistake

[Mawlzy]

snip.

Completely agree that risks need to be taken, even if it's only to discover that certain things won't work.

It's understandable that players want to play with friends. But solo vs premade creates problems, both real and perceived.

Bring back 8v8v8 in FL. Experiment with separate queues to see if they still pop, allowing those who want to play with friends to do so, and solo queuers to have balanced matches. Crude tier matching so rookies aren't placed against premade meat-grinders in FL.

And dump Shatter.

[Aravell]

I'm maybe missing something, but I don't really see the harm in allowing a maximum of a duo to queue into casual CC provided they also balance it on the other team?

If it's just a maximum of 2 and they always queue against another duo, 2+1+1+1 vs 2+1+1+1 seems fair enough, and if there's no other duo, the duo queued will stay in queue until another duo they can match against is found.

I don't see any potential harm in such a system for casual queue because the reason you lose in casual queue is so varied that it cannot be pinpointed on one factor alone, it could range anywhere from simply being outplayed in a fair match to losing because of that 0/8 MNK with 0 healing done.

Sure, 2 people coordinating is good enough to wipe the other team out in some cases, but the other team would also have a duo that can do the same thing.

[Valence]

Alright, so if I understand correctly, you're not against the principle, but deviation of the concept and bad execution.

[Valence]

Pretty much, yes. Consider that premades in other PVP-centric games have been brought up but I didn't respond to their presence with anywhere near the amount of vitriol I have for when they show up in Frontlines here.

Smite, Paladins, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, League of Legends... encountering a premade is a fluke during peak hours/bad luck during off-hours. But in FF14, a premade is positively suffocating during all hours of the day depending on which Discord group started queuing up and when (at least on NA side).

Hells, that 3 or so weeks when Dynamis was locked down during Dawntrail release was the worst PVP I ever experienced in this game (including where my screenshot came from), because nobody from Dynamis could data center travel out, but anyone could come to us. Suffice to say, a *lot* of groups (mostly from Aether) practically drooled at having a bunch of fish in a barrel to shoot at because they had a whole data center with little to no PVP experience being pushed into a mode if they wanted to level or get tomes (doubly so with Road to 90 being active) with literally nowhere else to go.

I mean, we're at a point that when most players see they have a premade on their side, they start coasting because they know they've already won, and if they're up against a premade, they can faff about because a loss is inevitable. A whole data center was taught this for nearly a month and I'm afraid it may have outright ruined the mode for all of those new players because they either don't take the mode seriously, they don't bother to queue at all, or they did the smart thing and deleted their fresh-faced level 30 and re-rolled elsewhere.

Premades, at least in FF14, do not inspire other players to "git gud" they encourage them to stop trying.

The problem I have is that you conflate FLs with CC in your reasoning where FLs have nothing to do with CC at all. And the premades in FLs isn't the problem, the problem is combo abuse based around a mode that's a dumpster fire of balancing, unlike CC. Nobody denies that the current state of FLs is lamentable, but it's not tied to people playing with their friends: as an example, when I party up with my friends and don't abuse DRK, then, strangely enough, we don't nuke the entire enemy party, what a shocker.

[Ath192]

All I'm going to add to this is a simple question. Do you think League of Legends would have become as popular as it did if it never allowed players to play with their friends? I'm sure the answer is a big fat no. Game would've died a decade ago. I'm still waiting for someone to name an exclusively solo PVP game that's popular here...

[Swordsman]

All I'm going to add to this is a simple question. Do you think League of Legends would have become as popular as it did if it never allowed players to play with their friends? I'm sure the answer is a big fat no. Game would've died a decade ago. I'm still waiting for someone to name an exclusively solo PVP game that's popular here...

Definitely not. What's funny is that arranged teams used to exist back in the day with the Wolves Den or The Feast, but SE removed it I think because there just wasn't a big enough pvp playerbase to justify having both a random solo queue and an arranged team queue. But I do support your idea that arranged teams should make a comeback at some point.

[Ritsugamesh]

SNIP

I feel like you're using your experience and supplanting into the discussion as a fact. Can you share honest data that this is occurring in games such as LoL? I've had plenty of bad LoL matches in my time, but I have never thought 'oh this duo queue game has mismatched teams'. I feel like you've been stomped and are just extrapolating that to failed systems.

DPS players have sat in PVE queues for 30+ minutes, SE are capable of forcing things. And look, if they enforce that a duo HAVE to be pitted against another duo (as they should!) and the queues don't pop for those duos, literally nothing changes for the rest of the community. It's a no brainer. FFXIV's main problem is the lack of innovation because of fearmongering. It's always the horrors that will befall a change, meaning nothing changes, and then those same people are upset at the situation they literally dug around themselves.

It is so simple. Why is this even a discussion anymore. Allow duos. Every pvp game does. EVERY PVP GAME DOES. (I literally feel like I'm losing my mind).