Free Trial Is Destine For Failure: Decide its Fate

Battleborn Battleborn General Discussion
#1

TLDR? read the bold wording and bullet points, and hopefully the devs will read this and at least fix some of the problems before it’s too late!

So first off I was really hoping to get my best friend and also my roommate to try out Battleborn when it became F2P but…

  • F2P users don’t have access to private matches (edit: it appears as though F2P users can’t join games but they can be invited to them)

This means that I can’t invite them to my “private match” to make a team so I can’t queue up with them or teach them how to play Battleborn. F2P users should be able to join private matches but just not be able to make them, anything less is a slap in the face to owners of the game who want to help the game grow. Also they can’t make or queue up with another team so they will be forced to get wrecked by 5 mans once they reach lvl 20. Not allowing players to make private matches is one thing, but not allowing people to join others private matches/teams and then charging 5$ to do so for 1 day with a player-base and skill gap problem is a disgustingly greedy tactic that will certainly cause an earlier demise to the game instead of giving the intended consequence, of giving the devs an extra buck or two.

  • F2P users can’t pick the mode once they get to lvl 20 (at least on PC - only quick match with no voting)

So atm F2P users are not only put into the “big boy pool” but are mostly confused about how to play each mode because they are cycled between the different ones and the only straight forward mode is capture. Also capture/face-off heavily favors CC characters thus, if a noob picks a character like WT or Orendi then they will get repeatedly killed for having terrible escape mechanisms. Sure there is draft mode, but it’s pretty much dead (for PC) and would require 100’s of hours of grinding for a F2P user to unlock enough characters to play it.

  • Queues are split up more than ever now, and their is still restrictive regional match-making on PC

Unfortunately this game is virtually dead for some of the PC users as here is a discussion on the first page of steam (link below) talking about extremely long queue times for Asian regions as they aren’t aloud to queue with players in regions outside of Asia without changing their steam download regions.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/394230/discussions/5/1353742967802559175

In addition the queues are split into 2 for noobs who are forced to play bot Battles till lvl 3, 2 main ones for lvl 20+ players, and PvE queues. All these queues makes the player-base so split up that certain queues are virtually dead or have long queue times, thus restricting a lot of the multiplayer ■■■■■■■ from the game and causing players to quit from long queue times and the consequences of them.This game really needed a server browser to help out with the low population and with the large amount of modes splitting up the queues with options to restrict the room to lvl 20 and below.

  • The full game is overpriced at 30$ and Ops missions from the seasons pass cost 25$ on top of that!

The full game should really be priced at 15-20$ and ideally should include the OPs missions or at least lower the price for the season pass to around 10$ and give people who already have it a crap ton of legendary loot packs or something to make up for the price change. As a similar game Paladins (still not as good :D) gives everything now and in the future for just 20$. So spending 30$ for meh PvE ■■■■■■■ and more expensive full PvP access than it’s competitors as well as 25$ for 5 more meh PvE missions isn’t very reasonable for an already low populated game.

As seen there are a lot of problems with how this trial system is setup, not only for F2P users, but also negatively affects owners of the game too. All this game needs is 1 Battleborn and 1 Gearbox dev to slap their fellow coworkers around a lil bit to fix the hell out of this game! Otherwise… I’ll be very surprised if it last another year let alone 6 months outside of 10 mans.

5 Likes
Your game is dying again
#2

Does this apply to public matches as well? If free players can’t form teams at all, this renaissance isn’t going to last long…

1 Like
#3

I know that they can be invited to teams by paid players, and play in any queue on that team regardless of their CR. Saw a little bit of that tonight in bots, but I’m fairly sure that Jythri and/or JoeK mentioned it previously as well. That said, barring F2Players from Draft queue is probably not alright. They should be able, at least once they’re out of the <20 novice queues, to form a team and play in any PvP queue. I don’t believe that’s asking too much. And being able to play IN a private match, even if they cannot themselves initiate one, is also something that would be incredibly valuable.

NOW, I can see a possible objection with the private matching. Players in the private match are not out there helping bring down the queue times in public PvP queues. Not sure if that’s even on the GBX radar, but it’s something.

NONETHELESS, I certainly agree with OP’s second bullet point wholeheartedly. The no-vote quick match thing is just plain weird. Limiting F2Players to only Quick Match, with no better hope than RNGesus of getting their preferred game mode(s), isn’t gonna help retain them. I’m more generous than most with spending money on video games, and even I wouldn’t be swayed to buy under those circumstances. I’d be turned off. Hell, I’m feeling kinda disappointed on behalf of those affected in this way.

I certainly get that free trial means limited access, but still. This is closer to demo or beta, and I think that a lot of people ARE misreading this as F2P and coming here expecting as much. They should be able to get the full PvP experience at least.

In my humble opinion, anyhow…

3 Likes
#4

You’re not alone - I suspect most people would agree, perhaps even right up to and including Randy Varnell himself:

Somebody is mis-managing this game into the ground (deeper into the ground? into the molten core?) And, like @lequizachris before me, all I can do is watch on in horror and say “Mellka plz”

7 Likes
#5

As long as they only have 6 character out of the box, this unfortunately has to happen as they need to have enough characters to “survive” the ban phase and enemy/teammate picks too.

2 Likes
#6

Regarding pricing I thought it was $30 for the full game including dlc. You can find the base game on Amazon for $9.99 (disk version) and season pass $19.99 so buying outright you could get full game from another retailer for $30. Frankly that still might be too much but if your only interested in PvP then $9.99 seems right. Maybe they could discount the digital version to same price?

#7

Wow, I didn’t know Señor Varnell wanted full F2P. Now that I’ve experienced a little of the “demo” atmosphere, I can see why. This segregation move runs the risk of deepening the rift between newbie and veteran. I truly hope it doesn’t, but from what I’ve already seen, I’m short on optimism. Well, to be fair, I’m always short on optimism.

I came back to PC for the update, to watch the show unfold. So far, I’ve only seen a few new players in Versus, mostly in Bots. Otherwise, it’s mostly been players that never left, or old ones that are returning, and they are absolutely vicious. No quarter given, perfect Gear combinations…

I don’t really have Battleborn Steam friends anymore, by choice, so I roll with the random players. It’s brutal. Even though the balance changes help mitigate some of the cheese, I can barely stay alive. One hard CC, and you’re destined for a coordinated team pounce. Throw in a little lag, and it’s inescapable. And then taunt, taunt, taunt, like something miraculous was accomplished. Oh, those everyday miracles.

So as those CR20s start to trickle in to Quick Match, I imagine they are not going to have a good time. It seems like the majority of the “Founders” are logging back in to tear these newbies limb from limb the second they hit the main queues. In a way, it feels like they are being encouraged to do so. After just two days on PC, I’ve seen multiple stomp teams all wearing “Dunkster” and the Shard of Solus, like badges that say, “We are the Founders, this is our game, watch us mark our territory.”

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

4 Likes
#8

If it makes you feel any better everyone from our group is making an effort to play nice with the newer players and give them wins. Please let me know if any of them do focus the newer players and I’ll be sure to take care of it so that they don’t do it again… Sorry in advance if Ice’s squad stomps you but i told him experienced players and 5 mans are free game. :stuck_out_tongue:

3 Likes
#9

I can see that.

So what IS a minimum number of available toons to make draft a reasonable possibility?

#10

Man…

There definitely needs to be some changes made to the ■■■■■■■ post-patch setup.

Im not going to waste time repeating any suggestions that have already been made here or in other threads.

But man, I can’t even say “Poor Gearbox” because you think they would have learned some lessons on how this all works (or should work) by now; it sure seems that for every 2 or 3 steps forward they take with this brilliant game, they simultaneously take 5-7 steps back!

2 Likes
#11

Four for the ban, four for teammates, five for enemies. How much does the queue require now? 16? I think that’s reasonable so that you actually have characters to choose from after the pick and ban.

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#12

If two teams of free players face each other in draft mode :joy: the chances to play are so small!!

6 characters but they need 10 characters to play and lets say they ban 4 unplayable characters instead of being asholes :joy:

1 Like
#13

Sadly, this is a pretty good summation

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#14

[quote=“TheRAbbi, post:3, topic:1562151”]
I know that they [Free Trial Playeres] can be invited to teams by paid players, and play in any queue on that team regardless of their CR.
[/quote]Are you sure?

Because on the Free Trial FAQ https://battleborn.com/en/news/view/en-battleborn-free-trial-faq/

it says “What does it mean to upgrade Battleborn?” … and permanent access to private matches. Also there is an item that gives a 1 day pass to private matches.

Yeah I agree, I feel that pay wall ■■■■■■■ should be handled like in Pay Day 2 where only the host needs access to the desired ■■■■■■■ and then anyone else can join without the DLC so the person who spends the money can get the most enjoyment out of the product by being able to play with friends.

Sure this might give the free loaders a reason not to buy the full game/OPs missions but if they enjoy it then it also gives them a reason to buy it to play at their leisure.

#15

Just keep in mind cr doesn’t mean pvp experience lol I think I was cr90 before my first pvp game

1 Like
#16

Yeah I didn’t want to make my OP too long, but obviously for the reason you pointed out, that dante would ban the 4/6 playable characters :stuck_out_tongue:, I was thinking draft mode would have to allow all players to have access to all the characters just for draft mode.

and sure like my last post this could make people not want to buy the full game because they can play all the characters in draft mode, but also it would give players an incentive to buy the game since it would mean the draft mode is more competitive and less annoying because more people could play it and each team would have access to the same characters. Not to mention they took away voting in quick match when many players only like playing 1 mode and then restrict the only queue where you can vote on the mode to the point where it’s dead on PC :sob:

1 Like
#17

I’ll just leave this here…

NO ADVERTISING!!

That is all

5 Likes
#18

So hey guys, i lost hope of battleborn months ago, because its simple. BATTLEBORN doesnt want be free to play. Now came the free trial who can bring 700-1500 players back.

For seriously… its too late brothers paladins just take the scene, why in the hell i will play a game (who i love and its probally on of the best fps online i ever play who is battleborn) if i ■■■■ find a god danm match in my region, need to change steam downloads to miami to find matches and play with 140ms even there i dont find what i want its just a random chance of whatever for reasons.

Dot it right please, give the community what they deserve just one time. Tell to us how many players are in matchmaking from modes. MAKE THAT FREE TO PLAY. For god i bought the digital deluxe edition and i dont care anymore i just want to play with people.

We gave our time, our patient, all of our battleborn community are loyal to you because that game is just GREAT! put more effort and just for once give to us the joy of that battleborn beta we all want again.

#19

To be fair, for the free trial players it DOES mean that, because they can’t play the story mode.

This is with the acknowledgement that ‘experienced’ doesn’t equate to skill. I have nearing 400 hours but even when I’m super in the zone, I could never scratch the likes of Ice’s team or Dunk Squad. Ah, woes of ELO-less hell.

2 Likes
#20

Well, I could shave my head and put on a black suit, because I had been in Observer mode again mostly. I could try to summarize what really went wrong on PC that has almost put the game back where it was before within one week:

Common complaints are missing match balance and no gamemode choice. While I personally like the random gamemode choice, since I got a little fed up with only being able to play Incursion in both private or public PvP for over half a year, I don’t have any Illusions that this is the general opinion. I’m in a very small minority to not be bothered with it and the games I played (only 6 last week, but this was twice as much public games as I played between WU and SU and I just didn’t have more time) we’re quite balanced between the modes. But RNG sometimes is iffy and can do weird stuff and that’s why people are raging when:

  • They don’t like Face Off, but RNG picks it 3 times in a row.
  • They don’t like Echelon, but RNG picks it as the only Incursion map in a session.
  • Don’t like Meltdown but have to play it more than once in 4 matches.

I’m sure that when we could see the global distribution of matches it would even out quite nicely, but people who really hate one mode and are forced into playing it more than once will obviously be very vocal, other people will chime in and then have a nice case of confirmation bias like when people didn’t believe that the self hitting multiple times in a row on Krieg in BL2 really wasn’t a glitch, but just RNG (and 25% on gamemode choice is a much higher probability than on that skill).

As much as I like gamemode diversity, this system hurts the game more than it pleases people like me. It should’ve been switched back to voting ASAP.

The complaint about match quality is another urgent case that should’ve been dealt with immediately. Before people shoot me down: I have the mathematical background to know that matchmaking is a type of multiobjective optimization problem with no unique optimal solution. You can either increase the quality of matches and the queue times suffer from it or vice versa. The problem this game has is, that the matchmaking is rigged and doesn’t just walk along the Pareto front.

There’s no official confirmation and I don’t have insight into the code, but I’ve played the game long enough and have seen enough teams of solo queuers ingame and on reddit et al that I’m quite sure I’m not far away from the truth:

While building teams, the matchmaking system tries to find people in your skill range. This is quite a sensible approach, if you have a larger pool of players to choose from, since it’s no fun for anyone, if a team is e.g. one player with over 2000 hours in this game and the other 4 have <100 hours combined. With a low playerbase this system is a disaster, especially if you can’t afford creating matches in a tight range but just pit them together (sometimes even multiple times in a row).

Some evidence I have for that:

  • Friend of mine once asked me, if I could queue up for quick match, because they are waiting for the last person for over half an hour already. I did, but I was not put in their team despite being on the same steam download server as them. The game has put me in a new team with another solo queuer, while the others still were waiting.
  • I’ve been grouped up with very Low quality players when I solo queued, but when I even only played with one of the hard carries I have on my friends list, the team was a much higher average.
  • People managed to cheat the solo/duo queue on PS4 quite easily by dodging until they found each other (@RedX, to add to the short discussion about that from yesterday: The solo queue had reset Elo that’s why finding each other was difficult in the beginning. But on PS4, the queue didn’t die within the first week as I was told and people could get their rating back).

The system in place basically subdivides the playerbase in a part that only wins and a part that only loses. With each match this situation gets worse and I don’t even want to know how many people are insulted of forming stomp premades, when in reality they didn’t even go stacked up into matchmaking.

I was in a discussion about some sort of bandaid on reddit yesterday that might work until the playerbase is healthier: Reset Elo for everyone and leave it constant (or wipe it again in short intervals). Everyone basically would be forced into smurfing and teams would be completely random in skill. The game still would screw you over sometimes, but the odds won’t always be stacked against those who frequently lost already.

This also means quick match has to go, since premades can wreck then even harder. Make it solo/duo (as much as I hate that concept in a team based game, it’s the only way to balance it a little) with gamemode vote and maybe leave draft as a premade queue (but I don’t know if anyone even plays that …). Everyone I talked to told me that solo/duo with fresh Elo had been loads of fun with many more close games than they ever had seen before.

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Should The Queues Be Returned To The Way They Were Pre-Patch?