I think @loving-hatred nailed it.
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Ou me me me! Tell me my faction!!
Am i a candor? (Divergent joke)
Seriously what is faction! You got all my attention on this!
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Wasnāt tagged, but you canāt stop me from responding. 
At this time (especially as PC player) I despise queues in general from the deepest of my heart. I onced loved to play any mode in this game (solo or coop PvE, solo queue PvP or playing with 1-4 friends), but it came to a point that I swore I will only play PvP if someone invites me to play (no matter if public or private) and this happens maybe once or twice in half a year.
Queues are busted and no matter which ones are implemented, there always will be problems with it.
My favourite way to deal with the problem would be to build a system around open lobbies (proposal that might work can be found here). This basically is a continuation of another low playercount problem, I had over 30 years ago, it worked for us to have fun, it probably would work here too. If you donāt know how to behave, you will be kicked or even blocked and no one will play with you. If you challenge a team of scrubs with a tournament quality team they will deny it and let you stand in the rain. Gamemode choice comes after getting teams together (and there could be the whole shebang from tournament rules with fixed gear selection to Warefare Rumble). This will imho solve a lot of problems. If it is at least semi-ranked, people have an incentive to match against higher ranked teams to climb the ladder, but they do that on purpose and then most probably will stomach a loss better.
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somewhere around 3 out of 4 games I play in solo/duo is against at least 4, if not 5 players in a premade cheesing the queue. Kind of sad, but at the same time, there is a very easy solution. I do not know if it would work on ps4, and it for sure wouldnāt work on pc, but on xbox it would. Just never have solo duo unless incursion is also on the playlist. It literally solves the whole problem. The overwhelming majority of players that cheese the solo queue are doing so because they have a group of friends they want to play with, and they do not want to play the casual game modes available in quick match.
Here is a way that it could work:
regular queues would be quick match, incursion, and solo duo all the time. Bots battle would be made into a pve queue, because it is not pvp. You could rotate regular incursion for draft once a week, and that would be it. Simple fix.
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Just going to add here that one of the reason so many red bar players have quit is the artificial skill ceiling. The more focused and experienced the player base gets, the more it mattered that my inputs all came with a half-second delay. (And in my case, it especially didnāt help that my main was retooled into a latency-demanding character.)
Right now, Battleborn is absolutely toxic in its lack of console region locking, given its tiny and aggressively competitive playerbase.
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Another thing that needs to be re-placed is the ability to see opponentās levels before the match starts. New players donāt know how to check to see if they are underleveled compared to the opponents and while it would raise a lot more backing out before games started, it would certainly divert the amount of frustrating mid-game leaving thatās been plauging matchmaking since the change was implemented.
Also, it would be nice if the matchmaking was programmed in such a way where a full squad of 100+s didnāt run into one lvl 100 and four 10s and below. Itās very late in the gameās lifespan, but something to lower the rate of unbalanced teams playing against one another probably couldāve bought the game more months in its lifespan and avoided this major frustration the community is facing now.
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Oi, fight me! Benedict may be weaker than he was than before but I can still blow them thighs out the sky!
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Iām certainly no expert in PVP, I donāt enjoy the ācompetitive experience.ā Iād give it a try if I thought there was a chance of being matched with players with demonstrated skill levels closer to my own. I already know most players are better than I am and I donāt have a problem with that; I just want a chance. I lucked into a few matches where the all the players were around the same āskillā level and it was fun.
Surely there are examples of matchmaking that can group players with relatively equal skill levels.
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You will get matched with equally skilled players ocassionally but not often. Donāt expect that on a pvp game that has been out for almost a year. Your best bet is to get better through practice.
Players in general need to stop looking at this fantasy game where they expect no/minimum toxicity from other players. That doesnāt exist in a competitive game. Face reality and work around it. Donāt let it affect you negatively. Be stronger than that. If you enjoy something, keep doing it regardless what anyone else thinks or say. If you donāt enjoy it then spend your time on something else. Itās that simple.
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Iām sure youāre right, but hope springs eternal . . . .
Barring any major change from GBX, I think the only possible remedy for the current situation is some kind of community based initiative. So for instance:
-
A mentor list on the forums. Mentors are vets that commit a certain amount of time helping noobies. They specify their availability in a forum thread. All mentors on that list friend each other so that they can facilitate balanced private matches for new players.
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Noobie pvp night. Maybe have matches based on command rank. So 5 rank 30s versus one rank 150. Again these are learning experiences for new players, not competitive matches so the vets might get stomped. Itās just so new players can practice.
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Mentor private bot battle matches. Get a vet and a rank noob to do private matches with bot fillers. Start to scale down to make it more challengingāso 5v5, 4v5, 3v5, etc. Bots are dumb but I did a 2v5 incursion the other day and it was somewhat challenging, especially if you go no healer.
Thereās a lot of things the community could offer. The problem is that-
- It requires commitment and consistency from players who are willing to help.
- For it to work, newbies have to participate rather than just quitting the game.
Some people tried snatching up newbies on pc a while back. I friended 7 new people on steam one day and none of them accepted or replied. I think itās too late for pc, but maybe something like this could help on PS.
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If you want to help people with no little pvp experience its going to have to come from the Vets who always group up. If you want players to keep on playing you are going to have to make a sacrifice. If no one teams up in a mode or changing solo/duo que to JUST solo and have it on all the time. With everyone solo queing you will split the skill levels, of all players. Sure there will be times when you are still playing with your friends and others where you go up against players who you normally team up with. But this is honestly the only way you will be able to help level out the skill and get newer players to stick around.
But honestly there is not a whole lot that can be done currently. Players have lost interest in this game, some are still hanging around in hopes of better balancing. And some players still love it likes its newā¦
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I definitely agree that something along these lines is what is necessary to keep new players in the game. I myself have been thinking of the same idea of just getting every current player in a list and create matches from there.
The problems with this plan though is
- At some point we are doing GBX job of matchmaking and it would be much more efficient in GBX implemented a queue that could do this automatically.
- Getting the message out. not everyone comes on to the forums or the Reddit so there would need to be a way to reach every player (ie. in game message > GBX)
- Similar things have been tried before to help population and train new players. There is the discord to find matches and there is a battle school there to train players, whether or not it is still active. There was also a 3rd party site someone made just to find players to play with. but again problems with these refer number 2.
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well said!
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Look at the talks especially on topics about how the playerbase is,
the pc players are a shadow of their former glory, mostly waiting for a miracle or for the end(nothing against them for this)
You have the players that are the āeliteā the ones who are extremely competitive and playing the tournaments,
Then you have the more casual pvp players. Iād include myself you and @FlamesForAll in this despite our varying opinions that Iām sure we have.
Finally there are the players who abhor pvp and stay to story/OPS/bots battle exclusively for various reasons
Then you have the battleborn initiates, depending on platform theyāll either default to how I described the pc players. Or slowly become one of the other archetypes
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This genuinely makes me sad. I donāt understand what happens to people to cause them to send the type of hate mail they do. Especially in a community this small.
Arenāt we all here to see Battleborn improve? Why tear down casuals?
I wonder what the playerbase stats look like on solo/duo days versus the other queues such as draft.
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My opinion differs, I see these players as being the same group. Maybe Lower tier elite ( depending on how many drinks) but still elite status. Casual or not is fine to add a label but lets be honest with the time played or matches played in total and/or with 1 character. No Casual Player has 1000 matches with 1 character or lets say what 500 or 600 hours. Because newer players have what kind of stats? Since I havent logged in regulary in months now, my lower CR of under 120 and hours played below 350 and matches played with my āmainā under 150 have put me into the newer player category against the elites. But thats why the experience makes them the elite in this lower player base type of game.
A Casual mentality with elite skills or experience is still Elite
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Point conceded,
but there is still a world of difference in my view. Me playing relaxed Iāll die, quite often I might add! But when I play and Iām in a foul mood I tend to get a lot more kills with no deathsā¦
so just because someone has the ability to play on the higher level doesnāt mean they always will.
Even among the vets there are still players just looking to mess around and have fun,
@mlemmon2 Iāve logged into battleborn under 20 times since heart of ekkunnar, and thatās INCLUDING if I had to leave a session and do other things to come back and log in again in the same day.
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As a PC player who solo queues, I can tell you the difference:
In Quick Match my estimation is that you will get around 5% āOKā matches (one side maybe favored but it was not obviously stompy) and around 2% Good matches (those are close matches or matches that felt like both teams could win for at least half the match).
In Solo/Duo Queue, you will get around 50% OK Matches and 25% Good matches.
You shouldnāt let one bad match ruin it for you (and if you do, these games are not for youā¦even the best and biggest matchmaking systems have problems like smurf accounts, AFKs, etc).
If youāre expectation is 100% good matches, you will not get it here or anywhereā¦
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Solo/Duo queue is primarily for those who wishes to avoid pre-mades and play Incursion because that queue is gone, regardless of skill level. Or at least as far as Iām concerned.
As far as the gap between veterans and beginners goes, a lot of veterans will have to change their attitude to beginners. That is if nothing drastically changes in-game or thereās a sudden boom in the playerbase.
A lot of veterans will turn against beginners (not necessarily directly against them through messages or mics, but complain to 3rd parties) which often causes them to become more elitist as they become less tolerant of less skilled players which in turn inflates the problem of a segregated community.
Being an asocial introvert, Iām not too fond of talking to strangers or taking initiatives. If it wasnāt for that, Iād gladly help (which I still want to) newcomers with understanding the game and having an enjoyable time.
Iāve started playing a lot more PvE as of late, and the other day me, @Darth_Huggles and @akumakuro4004 decided to go into public PvE rather than private to see if we could pick up a new player or two. We found a level 8 and invited hin to or party. He wasnāt on mic but we gave him tips, tried to guide him, show him secrets and other things. We invited him to our lobby if he wanted to continue, after which we went through almost all story missions on advanced. He joined earlier today and we prcoeeded to have a few games with each other. Hopefully he sticks with Battleborn, and Iām hoping Iām there if he goes into PvP so he doesnāt get disheartened straight away since heās still trying to figure things ourt (but still has done really well).
I mostly get 0-2 kills against low levels. I have no interest in getting kills and most of them are accidental in some sense.
This is a typical game for me against low levels and how I try to play;
At 1:40 I see on the radar that their Attikus is chasing me, and I know heās weak. I turn around to try and scare him off. The Attikus realises heās not going to win, at which point he turns around to flee. Heās learned his lesson, I can move on.
At 5:20 I see a low Toby passing by me, heās already trying to survive and get safe. I donāt need to engage to teach him anything.
Both of those cases I couldāve killed them with relative ease but decided not to as thereās no point in doing so.
Of course you canāt let them be alone all game doing nothing to them, but that doesnāt mean you should stomp them. What chances do they have to grow as players if they donāt get the room to grow in? Itās not helping if they get stomped on as theyāre entering lane, spawn camped or repeatedly taunted for basic deaths.
An example where new players couldnāt be left alone was a game I had a while back when a Phoebe and Shayne & Aurox kept on going through lane and our team on Overgrowth to kill our sentry. We had the push, but they just ran past us to go for the sentry. The objective was to kill the sentry, so they tried to kill the sentry. I think they died about 7-8 times before they quit the match. Because of their way of doing it, minions, the sentry, and turrets could kill them before any player even touched them.
Personally, Iād like to see Gearbox implementing a mentoring system of some sort. I donāt see matchmaking of any sort ever getting āfixedā, but the community can help to try and fix it if theyāre just granted the tools to do so. A seperate ātraining queueā where you can enter as either a mentor or a beginner depending on certain criteria (which I donāt know what they would be. Level? No. of characters to level X? Time spent in-game? Do you have to apply for mentor status?).
Regardless, I donāt see the gap closing anytime soon.
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