If the player base was larger matchmaking would be fine. If there were thousands of people in each queue, on each platform, at every moment, this wouldn’t be a problem
Has gearbox inadvertently done things to drive people away from the game? Yes.
Are there problems that gearbox has yet to fix that keep people from sticking around? Yes.
Does gearbox still need to fix aspects of PvP to make the game sustainable? Yes
The problem isn’t in the queues and the fix won’t be in changing the formats or modifying the gameplay.
Everyone agrees that the nonexistent “matchmaking” is a problem, but that isn’t going to be fixed, at least anytime soon. The real problem is that these teams stomp the sh*t out of the other team, even going so far as to box them up in their spawn area. They don’t have to do that, and it is self defeating in the long run, because these new players won’t stick around for more of that kind of treatment. Yet these douchebags continue to do it. I wonder if it is fun for them, being a bully? Why can’t they play nice, and then everyone can win?
Well, though I’m frequently on the receiving end, the game allows it, there’s no risk for doing it, so why would we expect people to deny themselves an easy win? I’m not terribly interested in condemning players for supposed moral or sportsmanship failings, perceived or otherwise. In other contests, participants are either separated by skill level or through some level of handicapping. Battleborn tries the skill level route through matchmaking, but that isn’t getting the job done and it can’t get the job done because the player base isn’t there to support a short time-to-match and effectively matchmake on skill. And how do you build up a player base with other gimmicks when the matchmaking is just going to drive them away as quickly as gimmicks pull them in? Removing barriers to entry, like turning to F2P, is a double-edged sword. They don’t have to invest anything to play, but then they can also just as easily quit becasue they haven’t invested antyhing. I think the only way is by some in-game mechanisms of handicapping, though perhaps not handicapping alone, but only to balance things out once matchmaking has failed to pit evenly matched teams in a relatively short time-to-match.
They could win with a lot more grace. That’s my point. They don’t need to kill them 100 times to win. They could just play to the objectives of the game.
Sure, and I get where you are coming from, but it’s an unreasonable expectation…unreasonable from the standpoint that it simply won’t happen. These players that pubstomp are making a choice to maximize their enjoyment of the game short-term at the expense of the long-term of the game. Perhaps they play lots of different games per year, this is their flavor of the moment, and when the game drops off to a trickle of a base they’ll move on. In their eyes they paid their dues in terms of time playing the game and paying for it, so why not get their own perceived value from it? I don’t agree with that philosophy, I personally think its poor sportsmanship, but expecting players to not behave badly when behaving badly is a dynamically defined set of social norms depending on who is playing the game isn’t going to improve the game experience…because they just aren’t going to do it, and no amount of haranguing them on message boards is going to get them to stop. I think it’s the developers’ responsibility to stop the griefing by tweaking game mechanics to reduce the rewards for that behavior. Anyway, thanks for the discussion. I appreciate your frustration and I’m pretty frustrated myself.
my point is that it’s not as if they choose not to
It’s that most people lack the ability to see things through other people’s eyes or in a grander scale.
they subconsciously justify their actions through any means and just go about their day without a second thought.
This is most people in all areas of life
Unfortunately, I think that you are absolutely right. It just disheartens me so much, because I really like this game, and this “solution” is just so simple and takes no real effort on anyones part.
I’ve been way behind entire triple Thrall bot minion waves as Thorn. I walk up and jump up to get a shot in, boom instantly dead from 700ish. So confusing
Well, here’s an approximate answer to my question on today’s Reddit AMA from @jythri:
I’ve talked about matchmaking in a lot of places, but just to mention a bit here: Our matchmaking system currently leverages each of the platform matchmaking systems by design. Overhauling the system isn’t something we’re going to see in the near future. I can’t be much more specific than that, other than say we’ve discussed it a LOT at the office. For now, we’re looking for ways we can adjust the queues, the ratings, and the matching to keep things smooth, and to manage whatever population of users we find ourselves with. The recent changes to bring on Quick Match has had a good impact on match times, and a small impact on match quality. More users will actually make a dramatic impact here now.
My opinion, which you can take with a grain of salt, means that what we’ve got with matchmaking now is pretty much it, and they’re hoping for some influx of players (from whence they’ll come, I have no idea) that will improve the experience. My personal take away is that I’ve got to make a choice about whether the fun of PVP is worth the frustration of frequent lopsided pubstomps.
My wife, bless her heart, isn’t a gamer, though she’ll occasionally watch me play. The last few weeks, as we lay down at night, she’s asked me to fire up battleborn. Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth (hrm…I should have put that differently), ive obliged. As this is somewhat odd behavior for her, I actually asked her last night, why it was she suddenly seemed to enjoy spectating battleborn matches. Her response made me laugh so hard I genuinely had tears rolling down my cheeks. She said “the game it’s self us fun enough to watch I suppose, but what I’m really enjoying is watching to see if you get a good group or not, and if not, I love watching you squirm to keep from cursing out loud and risk waking the kids” Lol. Maybe you had to be there…on the other haND, explaining your presence in my bedroom at night might be awkward lol.
Thank you for that story, truly. That made me laugh.
I had to read it to my wife because she (not a gamer as well) is usually sitting next to me when I play and constantly hears my grumbling and cursing when I describe the two teams that matchmaking has provided for gaming experience. She then gets to hear more as the match progresses with me getting stomped.
I read her your post. She laughed. Whether at your post or at me, I’m not sure, but you’ve brought us both joy this day.
Actually, my understanding of how the ELO is implemented is basically the problem.
They don’t get 10 players and put them together. They take 5 players of similar skill and make them one team. Then they try to find another group of 5 players at similar skill, but due to the limited population, it ends up taking a team of people who are all good and pitting them against a team that is all bad.
I’d rather take my chance at randomness, found quick match to actually be more balanced most of the time.
My girlfriend does exactly the same thing! It’s especially priceless when I hear her comment, from the couch behind me, on the matching outcome… “Oh, that doesn’t look good” or “Those poor people”
Have also been startled by many a cry of triumph/dismay when I didn’t realize she was watching, engrossed
Some just want to destroy everything in their path and unlock those titles (coopetition, old man cranky etc) to show everyone what a good little destroyer they are.
I think being a more anonymous environment for play means people really are less empathetic to others and have more laserfocus on their ‘fun’ and outcomes.
These premades either aren’t aware that they are the cancer of the matchmaking system or just don’t care because if this game dies down that they can’t stomp, they will most likely migrate to the next game for their instant gratification.
