None of which really matters. The important part is that there are fewer than 500 people playing. This means that there is not enough to really support any match-making system. So PvP experiences will continue to be bad, and people will continue to leave.
First step in trying to address the issue, is admitting that it’s there. So far, I’ve not seen Gearbox try to address the shrinking player base on the PC side.
What do you want them to do? Dance naked around the maypole singing then sacrifice a goat? Of course they haven’t said anything because there isn’t anything to say. And to say or insinuate they haven’t done anything regarding their PC players is silly because they’re giving us hotfixes and patches, one of which addressed the performance issues in the Echelon map; we also got a different option than PhysX. If you have an idea as to how to increase the PC numbers, I’m sure they’d be more than happy to hear it. Constantly harping on the same issue over and over and over (did I mention over?) again doesn’t do anybody a lick of good and that goes for complaining GBX doesn’t address the issue because there’s nothing for them to address. The success or failure of BB on the PC is in our hands, the community, not GBX’s.
I agree with most of what you said.
However, I think it’s in all of our hands. Gearbox needs to keep trying new things and working on the issues while the community gives constructive feedback and ideas if they can.
They are: they tried a new matchmaking system, and even though it didn’t work out they way they hoped, they still attempted it. There’s also the patch coming soon and the loot even happening this weekend. They are trying new things, but there’s still only so much they can do. Oh, and don’t forget the first DLC mission should be dropping sometime this summer.
GREAT to hear from you, and many thanks! I’ll remember about the at-sign!
Microsoft did actually state publicly about Rocket League something like “any other platforms that want to get in on this cross-platform can” we’d have to assume that obviously meant PS4. The only thing stopping cross platform is MS/Sony.
Interestingly, it did work, for PC players…
If you take a look around (which I’m sure you have) there are more than a few PC players who wish that the Casual/Competitive queues stuck around – because that system allowed them to actually find games.
That’s one of the core problems, I feel.
Attempts to serve the PC population mean doing things that annoy a lot of people on the consoles. And since we as a community aren’t particularly interested in making hard sacrifices for the enjoyment of others (which is fair, I guess) it’s a bit of an uphill battle for GBX.
Not my job to figure it out. In my opinion, they needed to have things working before the first big holiday weekend post-release. Things went downhill after that, rapidly. So it may now just be too late to do anything, but I would like to see them try rather than watch the game die on the PC side. Didn’t even have 700 people playing peak yesterday.
The player numbers say otherwise. They tanked after the implementation of the casual/competitive queues. Of course that means now we still can’t find games, because there are just not enough people playing.
Perhaps the numbers will pick up with the DLC… a lot of people have a season pass but have stopped playing. So perhaps the DLC can get enough people back to revive the game. But I would like to see some effort on Gearboxes part before that.
The play numbers seem to be tanking not matter what they do. They just changed it back, and the numbers you quoted are even worse than the 800ish that were playing during the matchmaking experiment.
All I’m going by (in this case) is the fact that a number of people (almost exclusively on the PC end) came out to express their displeasure for reverting the matchmaking. This isn’t proof, but it shows that it worked for at least some people, and realistically when your population is that low – something like it is the only reasonable way to match anyone.
Once people leave, they don’t often come back (shrug). If someone stopped playing because of the competitive/casual queues, how would they even know it was switched back?
They probably wouldn’t.
I think that’s the problem more than anything else. You just don’t need more players, you need more players at a rate that makes matchmaking feel viable.
People are buying Battleborn on PC all the time, getting stuck in 20 minute queues, and quitting on the spot.
What GBX needs is 3-4k new players to show up all in one day or week.
Some kind of trial / demo seems to be in order.
Hard to do due to the size of the game… 60GB is a bit much for a trial. However, if they slimmed it down, released a demo version that had a single hero and single map, that could do something.
Makes sense.
I can say the same for it hurting PC. Casual/Competitive change decimated my friends list. I had 10 people that regularly played, after the Casual/Competitive was added they ALL left. This in turn caused me to leave, I probably was going to anyways because I want to select my mode. I have returned since the reverted the MM, but only 4 of my friends have returned, the others have moved to other games in the week of no BB, so the damage is still being felt.
I have never waited longer than 10 minutes for any game with the mode select MM. So I personally feel like it was a terrible decision that hurt the player base more than it helped. I understand wanting to try things to help, but they shouldnt just throw it out there. Maybe have a test server for new things, but even that would have issues because of so few players on PC.
Bottom line is they have a mess on their hands and I sure don’t envy them.
Info:
PC player
Central time zone
Character rank 80 something
75% or so win percentage
Yes I agree with and am aware of all of that.
I was just saying that they need to continue doing it. Which puts all hands in the cookie jar 
I have to agree with you.
Many online games have issues out the gate but BB had a lot. Luckily they’ve fixed a majority of them but it took two months and there are still problems which they will handle as they are able. Fingers crossed it’s soon.
What hurt BB is everything going wrong after launch. It’s put a bad taste in many gamers mouths. Too many bad reviews and too many people confused by what Gearbox and 2k advertised for BB.
Which is why it’s so important now that they continue to better the game as soon as possible and rebuild theirs and BB’s reputation.
Yeah I paid $125 aud for the digital deluxe pre order. Haven’t even played for about a week now because of the drama with the servers timeouts and constantly getting kicked for whatever error message it decides to display. We paid more and got ■■■■■■.
Yupp I havn’t played since they changed it back, no point, can’t get games now
Is Lootpocalypse going to affect the drop rate of legendaries in purchased/earned loot packs, or just as drops from story mode monsters/chests/bosses?
Technically, both.