Omg this. Every last bit of this
Okay, then give me a solution. I just finished a set of games where two melee characters were constantly tower-diving for the sentry. They didnât push the minion wave. Theyâd push the ranged characters and make them back, then rush the sentry without minions. One guy, actually managed to run PAST the first sentry, and was sprinting for the second before he was taken out. I was playing Miko, trying to heal, and I spent so much time chasing THEM down, that I couldnât also heal the ranged ISIC and Marquis who were backfield. So we wound up with a a lot of 4v2âs and 3v1âs. I lost count of how many times I had to say âBack out of that fight!! itâs Three on One!! I canât HEAL you and DPS at the same time to balance!!â The worst thing, is that the ISIC player that I couldnât heal, got legitimately upset at me for not healing HIM. So because two other people are doing poorly, MY skill is looked down on as a bad healer.
What do IâŚwhat do ALL of us do in those times??? I want a solution OTHER than âJust play it out.â I work for a living. I have a set amount of hours each day I can play video games. As bad as disconnects, lag, network outages and power issues might hamper my play time, NOTHING makes me want to stop more, than players who make my time with the game less enjoyable.
What I find utterly baffling, is the derision at surrendering. I donât just hit the surrender button as soon as weâre losing. Itâs when I see a consistent pattern of live, die, repeat, that feeds the enemy. itâs when I see melee characters on overgrowth, constantly hiding behind our defensive turn point or just behind the exit of our tunnel at the accelerator, when ranged characters are sprinting around the map shard huntingâŚwhen thereâs a teamfight in the middleâŚAND when I look at our scores and I see at leas 2/1 KD ratio or a 30% overage in minion destructionâŚwhen I see a support, killing our thrall, when thereâs a damned teamfight at our SENTRY, THATâS when I reach for the surrender button first, and the quit button second.
What youâre describing is one of the games where a loss is almost certain; in any case, all you can do in those situations is play to your strengths, instead of enabling your melee teammates by healing them. Their bad playing is only reinforced if they believe that Miko = free tower diving.
There is no definitive solution, Iâm afraid - however, itâs also unduly biting to point fingers at the Battleborn devs for wanting to punish players for leaving (thus marginalizing the fun on both sides). In any game, bad teammates will drag you down. However, in most cases, Iâd rather have bad teammates than no teammate at all.
Assembling a group of likeminded individuals is your best shot until GBX implements a ranked playlist/reliable ELO. Solo que is always gonna be hit-or-miss, people are gonna be bad/ have bad games, or every so often youâll be hard countered by the opponent comp. Itâs all part of any game, and GBX is looking to make the experience more enjoyable by listening to community input and taking that into consideration when shaping the game according to their vision.
Itâs one thing to feel jaded by what appears to be a long wait for overdue changes/fixes, but itâs another thing to simply up and quit the match or game entirely; in the end, how you react to these situations will influence your overall opinion of Battleborn. For me, itâs a matter of trust in the future of the game, and I believe that if more of us adopted this demeanor, many of the problems we face will become that much less troublesome.
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They didnât stop TDing even AFTER I stopped healing them. Even after I got on the mic and was all but screaming for them to back off. Thatâs my point. Itâs not JUST bad behavior. Itâs IGNORANT behavior. They were wholly unaware, or uncaring of ANY advice or strategy beyond their chosen one.
Okay, perfect example: Just finished another fight, with me as Mellka, a Cald, Deande, Alani, and Montana. The Cald was 0/5 before the 6 minute mark, with the lowest minion count. The Montana knew nothing about playing montana, because he set a gear pick for defense(shields, damage reduction and health) and then picked all the OFFENSIVE mutations. So instead of slowing and locking down enemies for his minigun, he was setting them on fire and letting them run away. For those who donât know, Montanaâs Hailstorm is a BEAST in PvP, unless you take the Firestorm Helix option. Itâs fine for DPS in PvE, but there will be plenty of that going around. You need to damage and FREEZE, not damage and burn over time.
Meanwhile the enemy team goes 5/09 with Alani, 10/5/5 with Deande, and 4/0/6 with Thorn. I send out the surrender at the 6 minute mark, and as usual, people are too pigheaded to just let it go. But, I figure maybe someoneâs got an ace, maybe theyâre waiting or saving for somethingâŚand then I see during our sentry fight, one of the DPS go after the ThrallâŚthatâs still in our camp rather than the two and an elite bot, that was attacking our sentry. Their Deande literally walked circles around our sentry in close combat till I Spiked/Lunged her dead.
At the 12:00 minute mark, I send it out again. Weâre done. Our sentry has 65 health left, our Caldarius has stopped even trying to get midfield anymore without the Montana, who is content to sit back and fireblast minions from our base instead. Leaving me, Alani and Deande, to fight for the middle, get the shards, counter snipe Thorn, and shut down the turret. Oh, and NOT get pushed back by the enemy team. And once again, no one bit. Then something most refreshing happened. As I was considering leaving, someone ELSE did on my team. Like me, they saw it, and knew it was over. I took it as a good sign and left myself. Sure enough, the Caldarius ended up 0/11/5 in the final stats.
Iâll ask again. What am I supposed to do, with people who overfeed the enemy team, destroy our chances for a good game, and then refuse to surrender. Why should I sit there and have a BAD experience with Battleborn, when I could be playing another game in itâs place? To be clear, I donât care about winning. What I care about, is good play. Winning is a byproduct of that; good play changing the numbers and balance of the game that results in a win. But even in a loss, good play is still fun. There is no good play in Battleborn. So why am I playing a game that makes me stressed and agitated, when itâs supposed to help me relax and have fun?
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Bad teammates will always be out of your control. If you donât already have friends to que with, the forums are a good place to start. Many players are in your same position, and theyâd enjoy the company of a player who wants an enjoyable gaming experience.
Otherwise, itâs best to frame things into perspective - be secure in the fact that if youâre improving as a player, your experience will follow suit. Itâs a slow process - but 222 hours, 4800 kills and 1300 deaths later, Iâm still finding ways to improve my game, which makes each subsequent game more enjoyable.
Hamster, Iâm not looking to improve my game skills. Again, thatâs a byproduct of good play. Maybe âgoodâ is the wrong word there. ENGAGING play; gameplay that makes you think, challenges your mind and reflexes. Iâm not getting engaging gameplay. Because I have to watch other people shut off their brains when they play, and figure out how to work a character that I have no control over, and no idea what theyâre doing, into a team effort.
Engaging gameplay should be what weâre ALL chasing; you, me, Gearbox etc,. Win lose or draw, that should be our target. If Gearbox starts punishing people who are dissatisfied with not getting engaging gameplay, all that WILL be left, are people who either want to win no matter the cost(i.e. cheaters), or just want to do stupid things to make funny videos for themselves or friends. And I want nothing to do with either.
Improvement is the product of tenacity and critical evaluation of what is going on in any given match and genuine understanding of the best possible approaches to what is occurring.
If you want engaging gameplay, gameplay that rewards both sides for their best, honest effort, it does absolutely no harm to seek to improve if winning is out of reach. Won a 3v4 going 17-2, 285k damage and 129 minions an hour ago. Sure, it was stressful to think that it was going to be another loss because of quitters, but we pulled through and won by average score. If I wasnât capable of applying everything Iâve learned throughout my time playing, weâd have easily lost.
Again, your problem isnât an isolated incident - if youâre constantly getting the short end of the stick when it comes to teammates (which we can surmise to be the root of your grievances), then finding reliable teammates is going to be your best bet.
Hamster, youâre basically saying to go find a team, to make Battleborn better. I didnât have to do that with TFC, Halo, CoD, CS, WoW, LoL or DOTA to have engaging gameplay.
Thereâs only one game I actually had to seek out a dedicated group of like-minded individuals for competitive playâŚand that was Planetside 1 and 2, because both of those games revolved around hundreds of players working together in a common, LONG term effort, towards an UNFORSEEN outcome. I could show up with three platoons of 48 players each, subdivided into Infantry, Aerial, and Armored Vehicle squads of 12, broken further down by task and preset goal(infiltration, air dominance, bombardment. etc.) And with over 100 people working together, there were still too many moving pieces to see a win as a certainty. It was likely given our coordination, knowing our strengths and weaknesses and communicating our movements, but how the enemy factions responded would forcibly dictate our movement. Even with that many, my faction couldnât cover the entire map. And there were logistical concerns to deal with; getting tanks and transports through mountain passes or canyon roadways, without them being turned into parking lot-shooting galleries by enemy AV infantry, armor and air.
This game, is about moving four to seven bots along a predetermined route, and granting them time to draw fire so you can destroy two bunkered locations before your enemy can do the same to you. There are no nuances to the map that are positionally dominant, there are no external unknowns to contend with. All it is, is a game of movement and tactics.
The entire reason I left Planetside, was because I grew tired of people ignoring orders and common sense. As with Battleborn, there were many who became little more than lemmings with launchers, mice with machine guns, and followed the crowd to the biggest action spots. It didnât matter that a spec ops team might be doing things well away from the big fight. All they wanted was their shooty-shooty bang-bang. And strategy and tactics, gave way to stupidity and thoughtlessness.
Now, Iâm not asking Battleborn to provide me with the kind of challenge Planetside 1 or 2 had. I doubt any MP game for the next ten years will do that again. But I put well past 700 hours into those two games. I learned combat fast and hard there. This is NOT that kind of experience. I shouldnât have to work as hard as I did THEN, for THIS game thatâs newer, supposedly more refined and evolved of a video game experience.
Fine with me. If you quit on a regular basis you dont deserve to play with other people.
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If people would focus on playing AS a team, than playing like they ARE a team unto themselves, I wouldnât be quitting.
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Isnt quitting the exact opposite of playing as a team?
No.
First, Iâm not a glory hound. I play healers and tanks mostly; the kind of people that try to set up others for the kill. I donât mind having a high assist count and maybe a few more deaths than normal, if it means my TEAM advances and makes good progress along with me.
Second, I actually PLAY the role I pick. If I can reach you, Iâll heal you. If Iâm tanking, I will put myself between you and the ult youâre about to take. I donât use healers or tanks, as makeshift DPS just to add MORE confusion about who does what in game.
Third, and most importantly, I offer the surrender when I see it. Hey, it happens. Weâre outmatched in a random group. Itâs the same reason people gamble everything on one roll of the dice or turn of the card; chance doesnât factor effort. If I see someone screwing up over and over, and it feeds the enemy team, over and over, and they donâ change their tactics, I doubt anything later will magically alter their game. So I put the surrender out there, give us all a chance to walk away with a âNice round, maybe Iâll get to play alongside you one day.â feel.
Itâs only then, AFTER all of that, that I quit when people refuse or ignore the surrender. ESPECIALLY when they turn around and go right back to DOING the very things that made me offer it in the first damned place!!! If someone offers a surrender, and you refuse it, that pretty clearly states you wonât give up the matchâŚso why are you doing nothing different AFTER the surrender was vetoed? Why arenât you stepping up your game, digging in hard and doing more to get yourself OUT of harmâs way and the enemy INTO it? Why the same pointless ill-thought out tactics over and over!!!
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Yes, thatâs precisely what Iâm suggesting because until GBX implements any number of matchmaking revamps, solo queâing will always carry with it the chance for unenjoyable games.
Whether or not you have the patience/ determination/ whatever you want to call it to stick around until they fix matchmaking (which I believe punishing quitters to be a step in the right direction) is entirely up to you - when the game isnât going my way, I take a break and play Rocket League or Super Meat Boy. I wonât pretend that I donât get frustrated when I -should- be having fun, but I recognize that there are things beyond my control and that GBX is aware of the communityâs discontent with the current system in place.
Youâre not wrong at all, bad teammates make the game more of a nuisance than anything else, but as GBX has noted, theyâre working diligently to ensure the gameâs prosperity. Thatâs all we can really ask for, honestly.
I agree with OP here.
Being able to report is fine IF thereâs a decent matchmaking system. As it stands now thereâs simply too many stomps and too many people who have no clue running around.
The ability to comeback in this game is crazy I never surrender when itâs stupid early. Most games my late game is strong enough to carry teams lol, BUT when thereâs that one dude who dies like twice and repeatedly votes to surrender win or lose and refuses to help; well screw him Iâll say no to that surrender every time, make him wait, and report. If youâre gonna throw a fit youâre gonna have a bad time
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Tboski, you havenât read any of my posts. I donât care about MY deaths. I donât overfeed the enemy team or stick to the same position and strategy even when itâs not working. Itâs when someone ELSE does, over and over. When the entire enemy team ends up with a two or three level advantage, because someone goes double digit deaths before six minutes even passâŚTHATS when I vote to surrender.
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Seems pretty clear to me your one of those people that like to spam the surrender option, and when you dont get your way you just quit instead of playing out the game and seeing what happens late game.
If you quit a game here or there due to real life things or disconnection, its no big deal. It happens.
If you quit after a surrender vote because 2 other people dont agree with you, im going to report you every time.
Then Iâve got nothing more to say to you. Youâre not reading, youâre just insulting, and Iâm not here to be insulted.
Lets take it easy, guys.
Be excellent to eachother.
Given the toxic nature of the player base at times? This seems like a system asking to be abused by folks who just donât like you. Not being a tryhard? Report. Not playing MLG up to someones standards? Report. Asking for surrender cause the games a stomp? Report. Ugh. I mean Iâm all for reporting folks who run for the hills mad match or those that leave because they didnât get the character or map they wanted, or those that do ZILCH to help the team or leave mid game. Report those folks butâŚI dunno about this. I try to be a glass half full guy most days but lately? ehhh not so much.