Casual CC queue is just not fun

[DallsBeep]

There was a thread about this a couple months ago but because of the title of said thread I don't think it draws enough attention to the actual problem. If you're good at the mode, meaning you're a highly rated player in the under-the-hood rating system that they clearly and obviously have enabled for CASUAL CC queue matches, which is probably exactly the same as the one they use for ranked matches, only there are no thresholds where Crystal doesn't get matched up with silver/gold and etc. and there's no visible indicator of rank. Well, if that's the case, this queue just isn't worth your time at all. And you actually make it worse by your mere presence.

What this amounts to is one highly rated player gets loaded up with all the "Heart of the party" and "Battle bred 1" people, or just inexperienced players in general, and it's just a steam role for the other side. Under the current iteration of CC it makes no sense, you can't carry that. And what it amounts to is turning these new people off PVP because they get put on a team that's almost assuredly going to lose, and not lose in a way you can learn very much, just getting absolutely curb stomped because they have 1 hyper competent player on their team vs the other team which has much more team competency overall.

I just don't play the mode very much anymore because it's hard to find good matches that aren't just frustratingly lopsided. Good players should be rewarded for their skill, if new players lose to good players, that could quite possibly motivate them to become good themselves. This is how PVP should work, not this monstrosity you currently have in casual queue. I'll happily go back to ranked after this season is over in a couple of weeks and just stay there, forever, but it would be nice to have as a viable backup when you're done for ranked with the season, but in it's current form it's just bad.

Matchmaking in casual queue should be random. Sure, some games will be blowouts, there's always going to be those. Being random is one thing, punishing both veteran and new players just for being good/new is another.

[Valence]

Yeah I don't like that the system only seems to be concerned of getting balanced averages, and perhaps it should concern itself more into actually getting balanced medians instead.

Game quality becomes instantly better when there is an even number of ranked players so that you get at least one on both ends. Which can also get skewed by non ranked players that are actually ranked players in disguise but haven't been ranked for ages.
And then there is jobs, some people are just trying to get to grasp with a jobs they do not know and the hidden MMRs aren't concerned by having a per job rating instead of a global rating.

[Eastwall]

I just learned not to care. If l see it is one sided, l just take it as "nice, fast tomestone" and move on. It is still my main activity in this game.

[Voryn]

Casual matchmaking has a hidden MMR, not on a per-job basis, and the system just tries to attempt to balance the overall average on each team?

I’m new to pvp so I barely know what I’m doing, and just playing casual matches of CC. If I play tank or melee dps then so far I have to get lucky to have a match where I actually contribute to the team instead of just dying a lot, and I don’t mind that since the game is still fun/interesting. But it’s a little silly and unfun when I play Black Mage and safely get a lot of kills/assists by just standing back and shooting people during a teamfights, and I’m more likely to win matches when playing it. Per-job MMR would be nice to have if we actually don’t have it already.

[ThreeBeastSmile]

"I'll happily go back to ranked after this season is over in a couple of weeks and just stay there, forever" ... /think "but it would be nice to have as a viable backup when you're done for ranked with the season" …Hmm. Wouldn't the only honourable reason you'd be done with that be that there are no queues though? Casual is subject to the same sign-up parameters as ranked, meaning you can't queue with "friends"... so I wonder why even switch.

I mean, I can think of one reason... and it may occasionally tamper with casual match quality, but you'll have grindy acheevo farmers. That's definitely a thing. Some might want to keep at it despite rank queues being dead.

Anyhow, how would MM be organized for casual when it's just a stripped down version of ranked without the very very loose tier boundaries? Lifetime winrate? Whether or not someone has a confetti title? There's also rank sandbag alts that trickle into those queues as well. Think at some stage one has to accept casual queue for what it is: chaos.

"And you actually make it worse by your mere presence." Not totally unrelated then, but I'd love to be able to skip the opening "cutscene" where all combatants' PFPs are garishly paraded onto the screen. That simple show can already create inherent biases based on what is seen there, and depending on the kind of person you are. I already have titles off for clarity. The only thing that matters to me is what jobs I've been matched with and against to plot a course, and I can factor all that in while I'm waiting at the gates. The loud fanfare is irksome and I don't want to have to alt tab every time. Just get on with it.

(Though then again... sometimes simply turning up as a certain job is enough to get a "Nice job!" and a mental tapping out before the gates are even open, and this is what I'm getting at. Reducing nonsense psych-outs to a minimum. I think that's quite relevant to casual queue.)

[DallsBeep]

"I'll happily go back to ranked after this season is over in a couple of weeks and just stay there, forever" ... /think "but it would be nice to have as a viable backup when you're done for ranked with the season" …Hmm. Wouldn't the only honourable reason you'd be done with that be that there are no queues though? Casual is subject to the same sign-up parameters as ranked, meaning you can't queue with "friends"... so I wonder why even switch.

I set goals for myself before the season starts and when I achieve them I'm done with it. I don't see what's dishonorable about that. This season I just wanted to make crystal on a new character. I started at the bottom and made crystal in 69 wins, nice. I'm not top 300 or anything so I have nothing to lose really by continuing to play ranked matches, I'll still get the crystal rewards on my alt regardless.

And as for how casual teams should be allocated, I don't think there should be a ranking system at all for casual, as you've eluded to, there's ways to manipulate it with alts anyways. I have experience with that. I've made a few alts, and when I jump into casual queue on a fresh character, my win rate's above 80% for the first 60 matches or so, mirroring what I was able to do in ranked on likewise a new character. So it's clear what's happening, and I don't think ranking belongs in casual queue at all. Just randomize the teams, that'll make for more interesting matches for everyone, and everyone will still get pancaked sometimes, it's not gonna change that or anything.

[Commander_Justitia]

I still see 2-3 good PvP players in casual lose against a random team, when their remaining teammates are potato. It is the same in ranked. Crystal/Diamond tier is mostly an illusion. I sometimes saw better casual teamwork than in diamond ranked where people are stuck in meta thinking, not seeing an opportunity right before their eyes, because situational awareness is still bad - even if general knowledge is better.

If the devs decide to continue this kind of PvP mode, they should tear down the wall between ranked and casual all together. People are too shy to play ranked, not knowing it is pretty much the same nowadays. It wouldn't do much damage.

In Feast as a good Ranked player, you absolutely demolished the enemy team in a casual match in solo, we are talking like 80-95% consistent winrates here, near to 100% if you queued up as duo feast ranked players...This has definitely changed I guess. For that reason, I agree with "I do not care". There is nothing you can really do about it, carrying other players was made too difficult. You can be happy if you are over 50% nowadays, which is just slightly better than a coin flip...

Having bigger team sizes with 5 players, also contributed that you will see veteran players more often in casual just by chance. And will make it more difficult for ranked to pop later in a season, because you need 20% more players to pop. And thus the bored PvP ranked players will go casual mode to meme.
If devs would implement a more fast paced casual mode, where it wouldn't matter too much, because it is over quickly - it would be more enjoyable I guess. Maybe one with permanent rating, like Mahjong has permanent rating...

In a way I am arguing for PvP adjustment I do not like (like bringing The Fold - quick arena mode back), but if they keep the current system, it will still be better than not doing anything.
Good fix would be, that they see people like stuff like role actions and customizations in frontline, and bring it into CC too in some way. More ways to deal with situations. Then ranked would be more meaningful and set player skills more apart.

But you can already guess where the dev time for PvP will be spent on. Giving 2 new job new PvP skills, adjusting every new job max level skills and forcing them onto your PvP hotbar in one way. By continuing that way, they create always new balance problems...And then it is doubtful if there can be any more new changes. See you Patch 8.15

[DallsBeep]

...I hadn't even considered that some people might tunnel-vision onto an enemy/willfully ignore an ally just because of their portrait, but that is absolutely something that some FF14 players would do given how ridiculously petty they can be, especially in Crystalline Conflict if chat spam is anything to go by.

I don't think portraits have a ton to do with it tbh. Once you've played a handful of games you're a known quantity anyways, people quickly decide how they will play against you. At that point the only factor is how you play. Even on alts where I'm unassuming as could be, after playing against experienced players a few times they definitely respond and adjust.

[VictorSpoils]

This mode revolves around focus-firing. Your teammates will consistently attack 3-4 different targets, ignoring your markers and chat commands, while your opponents nonchalantly burn your team down 1-by-1 and easily outpush you. You'll virtually never see your team use any chat commands other than a worthless "Hello" at the start, paired with the one guy who hops around like a doofus for 45 seconds then runs in and immediately dies.

Win-trading is still a thing too. I saw two SMNs in a casual match a couple days ago with the same last name and, surprise: the one on the opposing team significantly outperformed the one on ours.

[Valence]

Casual matchmaking has a hidden MMR, not on a per-job basis, and the system just tries to attempt to balance the overall average on each team?

Yes and ranked players seem to get a disproportionately high weight into it. Which makes sense, but it shows limits as well because anchoring in a CC game has ten times more influence than your average casual actually pressing their buttons, and people that do anchor, be them a player in their first CC game or someone just struggling, aren't rated much lower unless they have played a crapton of games tanking their rating I feel.

Of course it's hard to tell exactly how it works and our experience may also be coloured by our own experiences and feelings. But there are still things that never lie: you'll never get paired with another ranked player unless there is a third one in the opposite team for example. And when you look at the post game stat boards, you generally are in the team that has the most of those anchors with absolutely abyssmal damage/etc (or even 0 self healing meaning they don't know about role actions...).

That's why I'd like to have something that is based around medians instead of averages. But who knows maybe it's already the case and we have to live with it? Something totally random without anything would just get even more lopsided games for everybody on average.