I admit I dont have a fix that will make everyone happy. I just am speaking personally. I play on PC, average 3 minute wait times, and enjoy my time playing as it is right now.
So to me personally this isnt fixing anything, its breaking it.
I will also admit this is a personal opinion and if this “fix” is whats best for the game, then I will quietly leave and let those who enjoy this change play. I am just bummed that this change kills the game for me. Im trying to not be selfish, but I just look at this change and want to cry lol
on top of that, i like playing certain heroes (benedict on coldsnap and kleese on echelon) on the less favorable maps, so this change will limit the roster pool too. hopefully it’s a percentage, i.e., overgrowth and paradisd are picked more often, so 60% of competitive incursion and meltdown will offer these and 40% " " echelon and cold snap. But this seems odd to implement now jusg before new maps are released…
I’m pretty certain that I’ll end up in incursion every damn game now, since it’s the most popular mode and I can’t pick a mode beforehand. I love capture and I’ll miss it dearly. I also pick capture when I don’t have much time to play and couldn’t finish an incursion or meltdown match… So this will just cause me to abandon games more often and I’m sure other people will too, because as we already elaborated many people don’t play certain modes.
I had no problems with how it was on PS4. My wait times were more than ok, my matches were mainly balanced enough. I’m sorry, but I really don’t like this change. I’d rather have longer wait times and actually play the mode I want.
Can’t wait to see the reports rolling in too. So people will constantly report me for not being able to finish a game mode I didn’t want. Good times ahead.
I felt the exact same way with the matchmaking fix from 2 weeks ago. Sure i was averaging 10 minute waits for games, but the games were balanced and fun. Then they got rid of ELO based matchmaking and while wait times were cut in half, the quality of games went to complete ■■■■. After a few games I quit playing as the games were such terrible quality it wasnt fun.
I feel like this is a great way to address both problems. Quick matches with large skill gap for the people who just want a quick game, and longer matches with a small skill gap for people who want a more balanced game.
@Gearbox…Have you thought about just simplifying it and making “Ranked” and “Unranked Matches”? Why cant we see this skill level?. I want to know what factors are involved with gaining this skill and what factors cause it to drop. It sounds like ranked skill already we just cant see it raise and drop. I think displaying this skill would make it more competitive anyways and you would have people play “Unranked” matches for fun not to drop in rank and “Ranked” matches when they want to be more competitive.
If you are releasing new game modes and one of them just so happens to be Team Death Match (wink, wink) then having “Ranked” matches would be amazing. This way players can be more strategic and play smarter to keep there skill level up.
For Casual play I hope they make a pool of 10 available players and then try to balance the skill distribution. I don’t think it will be that way, but it would significantly reduce one sided games if it’s simply 5 randoms vs 5 randoms.
I don’t think I’m going to enjoy this. It’s a start, though.
If I may offer a suggestion… how about:
The CASUAL PLAY queue will contain exactly three maps, one from each of our three modes. When you match in, you will vote on the map you want to play from the three selections. CASUAL PLAY will not use any skill-based matchmaking, so you will match with all available players.
The COMPETITIVE PLAY mode consists of three queues, one for each Versus mode–Incursion, Meltdown, and Capture. This will function similarly to the queues available at launch, except that skill-based matchmaking will be aggressive, factoring both ELO and Command Rank levels on each team, in an attempt to create the most balanced competitive experience. Experience and credits are the same as the CASUAL PLAY mode.
The TOUR OF DUTY mode consists of a single queue. It will use a less-aggressive form of the skill-based matchmaking ramp as used by the COMPETITIVE PLAY queue. Once a full complement of 10 players is matched, these players will be LOCKED IN to THREE CONSECUTIVE GAMES, each taking place in a different Versus game mode.
Each round, players will vote on the game mode to be played in that round, followed by a map from within that mode. Furthermore, players will only be allowed to play as a particular Battleborn ONCE during the entire TOUR OF DUTY, to encourage skillful use of the entire Battleborn roster, as well as to force teams to choose when and where to deploy their most powerful strategies.
At the end of the third game, a total score will be tallied for each team, which combines their overall score in each game mode, plus bonus points for winning a round. The team with the highest overall score will be awarded the TOUR OF DUTY win. Completing a TOUR OF DUTY is a major commitment, and as such, will result in a massive bonus to XP and credits, as well as a random piece of Gear for each player, coupled with a chance for higher-quality Gear for players on the winning team.
You would probably want to swap TOUR OF DUTY for a universe-appropriate title, I suppose, like SOLUS BATTLE ROYALE, or something similarly ostentatious.
In other words, if you want people to play all the other modes and maps, I think you’re going to have to provide better incentives, and not just experience or credits. Perhaps leverage the pride of your player base, to encourage them to go around and say, “I’m good in all the Versus modes, on all the maps,” rather than, “ugh, this week’s SPOTLIGHT is a Capture map, no wonder no one is in the queue.”
steal from halo “Ranked Matches” “Unranked Matches” lets simplify it, no need to go through all these changes if you want competitive balanced games play ranked matches if not go screw off and try new characters in unranked matches
Yeah I’m not sure about this. Sometimes I’m not in the mood for meltdown , and never in the mood for capture. Maybe Gearbox is overthinking this? Why can’t we just pick casual/competitive and then continue with how it is now? I do like the idea of the spotlight battle though. I would add a nice reward for participating in those, like a garunteed rare/epic loot pack, or a mass amount of credits. Could get people into playing other modes/maps they have not given a real try.
I don’t like it. I enjoy all the modes (capture to a lesser extent) but I definitely have moods in which I’d prefer to play one mode over the other. The issue here is that unlike in Overwatch, these Battleborn matches can last upwards of 30 minutes (for 2 out of 3 of the modes, anyway). That means if you don’t get the mode you want to play, they are asking you to commit upwards of 30 minutes versus the 5-10 minute Overwatch match. That means if I want to play Capture but get Incursion, I’m waiting for at least 20 minutes unless one team is really outplayed. Then I return to the queue and suppose it then lands on Meltdown. You’re now talking about someone playing 45 minutes to an hour on modes they didn’t want to play. For someone with limited time to play games period, I think this is a really bad idea. So then the decision becomes either you play what you don’t want, or you quit and get penalized. I don’t think gaming is supposed to work like that. Not fun gaming, anyway.
And then on the flip side, if the mode I do want to play comes up, chances are there are others who will be disappointed. People are going to quit. It’s going to happen. My only hope is that you figure out what the match early enough so that if someone quits, someone else can get added to the match.
I better get a few Incursion matches in tonight. Sounds like I won’t be playing this again for a while…
Yeah, Nice to see some clarity. Im willing to sacrifice my prefered choice of map so that the macro community get improved. Gearbox have data to know which maps are more frequently played, so I expect to see those very often.
In a business perspective, I imagine they “forcing” us to play incursion/meltdown. Capture players might be despleased, but it is a fair price if such change brings the rest of the player base back into the game.
My wife and I took back Overwatch and got Doom instead ,which was a GREAT decision Overwatch was Hugely popular because of their ad campaign, Blizzard made Diablo which is excellent !!! I don’t understand what people see in overwatch??? It’s terrible and very bland They succeed in the RPG category;however,Giant fail in the shooter/Moba department!!! Had Gearbox advertised with scantily clad teen-age girls,women assassin characters that look like strippers, and on EVERY damn thing you can think of… than Battleborn would have truly been the successor ,not forgetting the fact that ALL of the WOW fanbase who wanted to play a shooter could now do so without giving their loyalty away and turning to other companies. Long Live Battleborn !!!
I agree with a lot of the points raised here but also wanted to address how this will relate to Gear load-out slots. I think I will need a lot more gear loud-outs than the current 9!
IMO characters need a different gear build for PvE/Incursion/Meltdown (don’t play capture but probably one for this mode too) and because currently I choose which mode I am queuing for, I know what gear loud-outs to set up. For example if I am going to play Meltdown I will set up several meltdown gear setups (low activation costs due to generally shorter match length) for the pool of characters I play. This would differ to the gear I would chose for Incursion for example.
If I now am unable to search for a specific game mode I would need to have loud-outs prepared for all game types and this is not possible with only 9 loud-out slots!
Yay!!! Now I gotta leave matches now. I’ve never left a match before but now I’ll have to. I hate, HATE meltdown, and I won’t play capture without friends(who don’t play often) so I always play incursion(which I love). So now I’ll have to leave games that aren’t “voted” incursion. Yay!!!
Please please please give me a reporting system for quitting games. Either before or in the middle of the game. Especially when entire groups quit and know that will kill the game, meaning the penalty of having to wait for the game to end is negated because the game fails immediately.
So please add more load-out slots (and also bank tabs pls!) that are available for in game credits. I don’t mind if they are also available for Platinum, but lets say increase max bank slots to 499 and gear load-outs to 30 and have them available at the current rates.
Also thank-you for keeping us updated as to whats in the works!
don’t force us to play certain game modes in either casual or competitive. you should really think about a multi-queue where we can pick modes we want to play. (rocket league does this right, and you can queue up for a solo only with other solo players to avoid any groups) let us queue for what we want to play, then you can keep the map selection random or at a vote. i’m not looking forward to somehow playing competitive outback/temples. capture is way too shallow of a mode and has nothing to do with the moba aspect of this game. i’m not a big fan of incursion for competitive either, but that is a whole other topic on it’s own. if somebody gets stuck with a map/mode they don’t want to play then they can just disconnect with no penalty in place for them. how do you plan to combat early disconnects due to players not wanting to play a certain game mode?
Ok, so everyone is focusing on the “can’t pick play mode/map” factor. Here’s what I see - player abuse. If anyone can play casual mode without skill matching, then you will end up with more premades stomping on pugs. Take out the ELO in casual, and it’s a free for all, giving the better skilled/more co-ordinated teams an easier time picking on newer players. Doesn’t sound fun to me.
As for competitve mode, you’ll find the opposite problem. Unskilled players that think they are the next esports king trying to queue up or new players who simply want a cut of the extra exp and credits, potentially impacting the competitive games. There’s also the fall out of when those people can’t find matches in their skill bracket, leaving them two options - acknowledge that they aren’t skilled enough to find a match, or complain to you guys about matchmaking! I think it’s pretty clear how that would play out lol
Definitely going to throw my support behind this suggestion. My experience with the “competitive” teams that I have played against or watched on Twitch - the ones who claim to run “pro” teams - are not the people I want to be playing with. Yelling at team mates for even moving without permission, rage quitting when they are losing in the first 10 minutes, etc. The idea of being “casual” in this game is something I have seen/heard being thrown around as an insulting term. It might be anecdotal, but I see words like competitive and casual, and read elitist and n00b. I don’t want to see the player base split like that, and feel that a simple change to “quick” and “matched” would remove a lot of that immediate prejudice
This is a really good question. And to bring it a step farther. How do you not punish the other players who had a leaver on their team?
By the sounds of this forum everyone is going to quit every game because its not the exact mode and map they like, which will lead to a lot of unbalanced matches. Why should I lose rank because 2 of my teammates dont like meltdown?
