Failing to address multiplayer in PVP is a mistake

[Ritsugamesh]

To be fair, a lot of these before-mentioned 5v5 games already have "bot matches" where its you with 4 AI against 5 AI, or you and 2-4 humans against 5 AI. Play 'em on easy, and it's so scripted you can play with your eyes closed, play 'em on hard and the AI literally cheats, lol. Said modes still see activity though, with the only caveat being that the human players (regardless of how many) receive reduced rewards, usually half, compared to playing a "real" match and most if not all achievements aren't counted. Given how many players only queue PVP in FF14 for marks/crystals/tomes/XP, it *could* be an avenue to funnel low/zero skill players out of the normal version. (Though what affect that would have on queue times of the normal mode when the majority moves out of it...)

That said, HELL NO to premades in Crystaline Conflict. They're already a goddamn blight in Frontlines and Rival Wings, and that's still taking into account the RNG of the rest of the team. Only 5 people with that level of coordination? Absolute clown show where solo queue folks would just give up and not try (thereby bringing the same lethargy that premades brought to Frontlines/Rival Wings). The only way it could work is if premades got splintered off into their own separate queue, but I don't know if we have the numbers to sustain that either.

The problem with PVP in general in FF14 is that there's one group that wants to turn it into sweaty all-day competition, another group that just wants to faff about and get their goodies, and there's the third group stuck in the middle who just wants non-obnoxious PVP but keeps getting forced to deal with the first two groups. Suggestions have been made before to divide them into different tiers & queues (ranked/premade for the hardcore, bots for the zipcore, and what we have now for everyone else), but it always comes back to one issue: Would there be enough people to populate each mode and the answer is always a big fat "EH... I DON'T KNOW".

I swear to god people don't even read the 'other side' of the argument. Nobody wants a 5 stack premade stomping 5 solo players. That is so obviously a terrible idea it amazes me people think this is what is requested. Literally no game with PVP would do this, can we stop already.

If a duo is in the match, the matchmaker puts a duo on the other team. Literally perfectly balanced and duo q is implemented. Job done. How is this so hard to comprehend?

[Valence]

I swear to god people don't even read the 'other side' of the argument. Nobody wants a 5 stack premade stomping 5 solo players. That is so obviously a terrible idea it amazes me people think this is what is requested. Literally no game with PVP would do this, can we stop already.

If a duo is in the match, the matchmaker puts a duo on the other team. Literally perfectly balanced and duo q is implemented. Job done. How is this so hard to comprehend?

This is far from the only time this has cropped up on those forums, but usually it stays in the pvp subsection. People do not want to comprehend it and it keeps being brought up again and again like a scarecrow that nobody actually wants. They're usually more interested into drawing walls between different types of players by implementing different queues and modes so they don't have to deal with them at all, which is the true crux of the matter. They do not want to deal with "sweaty players", period. They want them out of the picture on their end of the monitor.

We had team ranked back in the day for Feast and it ended for reasons described already on this thread. That being said, if they intend to consolidate the ranked queues together per datacenter, I could see an argument for it coming back. They would need to implement designated queue windows, though, and not allow 24/7 queuing.

Ranked CC should obviously stay solo. Casual CC could do with at least a duo queue.

Frontline is the real victim of this disease. Taking away 8-mans was a gross overkill solution to a problem that involved the 8v8v8 games that happened because there weren't enough of a Grand Company. All they needed to do was implement forced freelancer for everyone (which they did) and abolish anything that isn't 24v24v24 (which they also did).

I agree with you on CC, but having actually played through the 8 NIN premades in 24v24v24 FLs, I can safely say that I do not miss those days at all. But I mean, if their balance was more on point, perhaps we would stop pointing fingers at premades instead of comp abuses.

[Mistress_Irika]

The only viable middle-ground solution I can see is allowing friends to queue up together, but with a reduction in the rewards earned based on the number of players in the premade group. For each additional friend in the group, rewards like Wolf Marks, PvP XP, Series XP, and leveling XP could be reduced by 10%.

I'm definitely not sure why we're incentivizing others to not queue together. Me? I personally wouldn't care since I don't play for rewards to begin with. My duo and I can have a real challenge. The other small group of people that has the priority of maximizing their XP for the day? They're queue syncing instead of having to deal with this. Just take a chance and create a separate queue for those that wants to play together. It won't hurt those that wants to play solo.

Someone in a different thread asked about the accuracy of the small guide on crystal conflict, and I'll stand by my word that the guide sums up the entire experience of CC simply because of how queues are set up. I know that isn't true. I know that there's more to offer than just that. However, unless you're consistently playing in platnium/diamond rooms at minimum and/or you're one of the very few people that plays CC with 9 other people that is the overall experience that you're going to get for CC. Everyone is in the solo queue mindset. Kill whoever you think is important at the time, perma push crystal, and worry about your own survival. Everyone is looking to be the carry, and they'll use you as a shield if they have to. In short: you're on your own. You'll be lucky enough if you got someone that called out who they're pressuring and even luckier if they do countdowns, something that's often done in high rank and premades. Good luck consistently getting that in casual games.

[Valence]

This is why you don't have a system that puts premades in front of a group of solo players. Period. They'll sit in the queue until they get their match in the opposite team. Although to be honest, duos are just duos, especially in casual. So many other variables swing in all kinds of ways in this mode...

[Ath192]

Eh... I've played stuff like Smite, Paladins, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, and League of Legends and it happens quite often that a group of solo players is put up against a team and gets bodied. Maybe those games *try* to put premades against premades, but when no other premades are around... they absolutely will throw the solo queue to the wolves, or they'll sic a full stack onto a duo and such because "technically" its team vs team.

Hell, that's exactly what happens now in Frontlines, where all it takes is one 4-man/8-man stack of "friends" to shut down the whole match and reduce the other 64/68 players to NPCs who get to watch, zero guardrails there either to prevent premade abuse to the point there's entire Discords centered around "taking turns" so said premades can avoid each other because, and this part is hilarious, a lot of Frontline premades in FF14 *don't* want to fight other premades, they just want easy wins against uncoordinated fodder.

And maybe you only want duos vs duos, but we'll have someone else coming in here asking for trios, and so forth and so on until Crystaline Conflict is having to separate and main 5 different kind of queues because even just a 2-man versus a 5-man will end poorly for the duo in that equation. If you have a problem with people hating on premades though, take it up with the people who soured the whole concept for several years on Frontlines, to the extent that we just automatically assume anyone wanting it for CC is just out to abuse solo players too but in their preferred mode.

Even if you personally had no ill intentions and actually do want competition against other teams, that makes you rarer than you think.

I completely disagree with your argument because it just screams of a bunch of reason why you should just give up. And you know, maybe thats why PVP has always died in this game. Sure all the games you mention have their issues, but they are thriving or thrived because even if sometimes stuff happens they are ultimately fun to play even if not perfect.

So taking your friends away from you as a safeguard against potential multiplayer imbalances is just about the worse thing you can do. Literally any other balancing system is better than isolating you so you can't play with your friends.

[Atreus]

I agree with you on CC, but having actually played through the 8 NIN premades in 24v24v24 FLs, I can safely say that I do not miss those days at all. But I mean, if their balance was more on point, perhaps we would stop pointing fingers at premades instead of comp abuses.

That can't keep being the players' problem. SE's failure to balance shouldn't lead to limitations on the players.

[Dirwen]

I solo queue into pvp so no thx on team queue its unfair to me unless they get a separate mode.

[ArchlordPie]

I swear to god people don't even read the 'other side' of the argument. Nobody wants a 5 stack premade stomping 5 solo players. That is so obviously a terrible idea it amazes me people think this is what is requested. Literally no game with PVP would do this, can we stop already.

If a duo is in the match, the matchmaker puts a duo on the other team. Literally perfectly balanced and duo q is implemented. Job done. How is this so hard to comprehend?

Your post is funny because I've played League of Legends since season 3, Overwatch since launch, Heroes of the Storm since launch... all of these are PVP-centric games and ALL OF THEM can and do regularly throw full teams of solo players up against full-size premades, specifically because queue times are supposed to be no longer than a minute or two, but the premade has been in queue for half an hour and matchmaking just wants to put them in a game already.

Overwatch in particular got so much grief for this that eventually, Blizzard changed matchmaking to intentionally skew MMR balancing when premades are involved, to the point where if you're in a full-size premade, everyone in your premade is bronze, and you get matched against a full solo team, the solos will all be gold and platinum and steamroll you through skill difference alone. I get that they were trying to override the community's perception of "5-stack vs solos, I'm best off leaving the game or inting to get it over with faster", but it ruined the game for my friend group and most of us uninstalled after we went multiple extended sessions without a single win. Eventually someone went and looked up our opponents and that's how we found out.

[FuturePastNow]

You can already make private 5v5 matches, OP

Of course I know that anyone who wants to queue a premade into normal ranked or casual just wants to stomp randoms for a laugh. You know you can already do that in Frontline, right? And it's a miserable experience for everyone else.

[Ritsugamesh]

Your post is funny because I've played League of Legends since season 3, Overwatch since launch, Heroes of the Storm since launch... all of these are PVP-centric games and ALL OF THEM can and do regularly throw full teams of solo players up against full-size premades, specifically because queue times are supposed to be no longer than a minute or two, but the premade has been in queue for half an hour and matchmaking just wants to put them in a game already.

Overwatch in particular got so much grief for this that eventually, Blizzard changed matchmaking to intentionally skew MMR balancing when premades are involved, to the point where if you're in a full-size premade, everyone in your premade is bronze, and you get matched against a full solo team, the solos will all be gold and platinum and steamroll you through skill difference alone. I get that they were trying to override the community's perception of "5-stack vs solos, I'm best off leaving the game or inting to get it over with faster", but it ruined the game for my friend group and most of us uninstalled after we went multiple extended sessions without a single win. Eventually someone went and looked up our opponents and that's how we found out.

This just isn't true, certainly not League of Legends. It has a cap at duos, then it has a separate queue for 3+ teams. Queues are like 30s to 5 mins at absolute most. Please no misinformation if you're trying to put an argument out there.