The pubstomps (and what if anything can be done about them)

Battleborn Battleborn General Discussion
#1

In my last thread which was a bit unfair to the devs I explored leavers and the problems this has to a community. I’ve shifted my view somewhat, but I think there is a bigger problem going on right now that needs to be addressed.

Basically on all platforms the community size is too small and I’ve observed (with out the hard data to back since this isn’t available to me to crunch) that the smaller the community, the more hard core players you seem to have teaming up and then crushing other people.

This is a problem. I think this sort of thing could cause a death spiral to the game as it leaves players (frankly like me, but more to the point anyone new trying the game out) to decide once is enough and move on. I certainly do not have a patience for queing through too many pub stomps before moving on.

The Devs had an idea by re-quing you with your party, basically in theory if you play enough times you will slowly get enough people together through random queing to have a good team that can compete with pre-mades. This was decent in practice, but I think in effect it actually made the problem worse. This means that now those who are in a incomplete premade are more likely to end up in a more dominate team and those who are willing to stick it out a few games eventually become a similarly dominate team. For the person trying this game out or someone who only really has time or patience for a few games, this is pretty much a deal breaker.

A lot of talk goes into leavers and I certainly had a lot to say on the subject myself, but I now see leavers as more a symptom rather than the actual problem. If you’re faced in a team with five 100 against five sub fifties you’re probably thinking this will be one sided and unfun and while I recognize rank doesn’t signify elo, it does signify experience and what is happening is GBX has loosened restrictions on quing to get people into games, even if those games are no fun for half the people in them. The community probably has a limit to how much of this it can take and if I had to bet I would put money that all three platforms are seeing shrinking community sizes by the day.

Now if we had a bigger community this wouldn’t be a problem so much and no doubt the devs are working more toward this solution than anything, but I would argue it isn’t entirely the right idea. Community shrinking issues are bad no matter what your community size.

Personally I think the auto re-quing with people should probably be stopped. I believe it does more harm than good for the more casual and the first time players and they’re the people the game needs more of right now, the hard cores are already willing to play and would be happiest served by just having the game to play.

Second talk has been made about changing how quing works (on the player side) recommending not grouping and then trying to match by a collective elo as that is probably harder. I agree with this but I recognize it might be a harder change to make.

Third, this is the part that is going to get me flamed off the forum. I think group quing needs to be given a significant back seat to fair matching. If you have five solo ques, or three and a two pre made they should not be put against a four person pre-made. If the group quers need to wait longer than I think that would be better for the community than making the solo quers play against them. It just isn’t fun and no one besides the group ques are going to want to be a part of that.

I know I’m going to get flak for the last suggestion, but whom are the people mainly fighting me on this? People who come to the battleborn gearbox forum in the first place. Ie the more hard core group quers.

I ask that people step out of their own enjoyment and ask what would be better for the community, because a lot of my personal ire and concern for this game stems from the fact it is without a doubt shrinking and this before any of the promised season pass content has even been teased.

This is a problem we all share, IMO this is a bigger problem than any content the devs could ever drop.

Thank you for reading.

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#2

Another thing I forgot to mention is the auto re-que seems to be the cause of some of the d/cs since people (I’ve done this and I bet you (whomever you are) have too) end up forgetting they are que’d so they get in game and just leave. I’ve certainly seen this and this unintended consequence no doubt leads to bad experiences.

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#3

I think that premades should be only be allowed in 2s, 3s, and 5s, and then just put them in their own queue. Additionally, get groups of ten people, and then sperate them into two teams. The first part is my opinion that is most likely wrong, but the second part definitely needs to happen. They just need to grab the ten first people available, then split them equally.

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#4

I play duo only, with my girlfriend. Re queuing with the same team made the game bearable again. It’s hard to find a good team that works together. Without re queuing, I’m stuck playing only my best characters and stomping as hard as I can because there’s a good chance my team will be garbage.
Second, the community is growing, where I am at least. My wait times are short, I never see the same names anymore… So you must be on pc.
I half support the group backseat, half hate it. I play duo, because it’s the only way to guarantee a support when I play tank. Should I have longer wait time? And if re queuing were gone, I’d have a longer wait time and have a random pub every time, as opposed to people I’ve seen and know how they play? And why am I gonna keep playing when I’m getting punished for playing with my so?
If you were talking premade 4-5, I understand. But… Premades are not always that good, so I’m not concerned really.

The only thing I agree with is the queuing against weird levels. I keep ending up against level 10 or so every so often. I feel bad and go afk every few minutes because they don’t know how to face me, or have the useful mutations, etc.

So I think in some areas, like where I live, mmr (elo whatever ) should matter more. Because I’ll still get a match pretty quickly. Australia? Give them a match asap! Screw the elo.

Oh, and the community isn’t really shrinking. Until I see proof, I won’t believe it. I’ve heard the same numbers used since release, even on pc. 500-1000 at any given time.

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#5

find people who have mics. befriend them.

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#6

http://steamcharts.com/app/394230#1m

Frankly it’s pretty indisputable, the community is shrinking.

I can’t provide xbox and ps4 but the devs could and I’d bet money the trend is the same there.

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#7

You know, up until yesterday I had the complete and utter indifference with matchmaking. I’ve officially changed my mind. The story: I am pretty good and generally am 1 or #2 as far as score goes in any game. Generally speaking that’s how it goes. Yesterday, I fire up Miko for the first time. I played him/her all day and I never experienced so much stupidity in my life. I was on teams where we got absolutely destroyed. As noted, I’m generally 1 or 2# as far as score goes. Even in these cases I had the most points. So what do I get after these losses? A ton of messages telling me how much I suck. I was like how can I outscore you and you tell me I suck? like seriously? On the other side, I was on games where we absolutely destroyed the other team. Again finished #1 or 2 for score and didn’t hear anything about it. I’m so used to getting hate mail via xbox it’s turning hilarious. Yesterday’s experience as Miko certainly changed my outlook on BB as a game and the majority of people who play it.

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#8

Hit me up on XBone.

And playing miko gets flak so hard on One from a losing team.
Especially when you get kills between watching allies jump into enemy nades and swords, arms wide open.

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#9

oh yeah. these guys were complete fools. Its like they were under the impression I was to follow them around the field personally and help nobody else. Just them, and only them. and I"M the newb. LOL just stupid. I play Tuesdays and Thursdays now as they are my work from home days. I’m getting to the point where I only want to play with a premade. I can see why people do it. can’t blame them.

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#10

I will believe that about pc. If nothing else, it’s stagnant, at best. But I don’t hear the same things about console…

#11

yup. esp if they have no mic and you keep telling them. Dude im a healer. you know when your health gets low ill heal you up

#12

The pubstomps could partially be cured by editing how buildables work after the first sentry is down.
As things stand now, Incursion favors the team that gets the push first.
Even more so after the first Sentry dies.
They can move their line up, forcing the losing team to trudge their minions through more buildables, taking deep dives into enemy territory to grab thrall, and have to risk everything to attempt to grab any shards.
Basically, incursion favors a win more mentality.
Versus meltdown, which forces the enemy to protect minions DEEPER into their opponent’s territory in order to secure sacrifices. And being two lanes, unless there is a clear skill level difference, both teams still have equal access to shards .

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#13

yeah, yesterdays gaming experience was pretty much the worst it’s ever been in my life. I’m 35…I’ve seen it all.

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#14

I do wish they would move the “leave queue” button to the results screen instead of the next matchmaking screen.

I usually like to look over stats, and accomplishments and what not after a fight without needing to go back into match history. This is very difficult to do when you don’t want another match, yet want to look over the game stats.

Just yesterday, right after the match ended, I sent a congratulatory message to an enemy player who achieved worthy of song in the match. By the time I finished the message, the next match was already on character select. I wasn’t intending on playing another match as I was heading off to bed.

Being ale to leave the queue from the results screen would be very welcome in my book.

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#15

I never understood why in incursion, the winning team has the ability to buy the losing teams buildables (or why the losing teams buildables all despawn upon death of the first sentry for that matter).

It should be HARDER for the winning team to keep pushing deeper to the second sentry, not easier…

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#16

Im close to 30 so I’ve seen a lot as well

#17

The OP does understand the real problem. The low population is the dilemma we’re all facing.

Therefore, you also answered your own question. No, the pubstomps won’t stop, because if they do then there would be even less people playing. At the rate things are going, it would be the same 100 people fighting to the death, any newcomer that isn’t aware of the dynamic would have both their feet trapped in cement before being tossed down the nearest cliff 10 meters away from the spawning point.

Until this game has some new content that is both much more replayable and interesting, lunatics like myself would be more than willing to devote more hours into it. If not, I’ll spread my lunacy elsewhere.

#18

I dunno its not even that I’m in a five stack, I still get the same results usually just duo.

It’s not even that we really communicate either. It’s usually just audible awareness that we all share anyways. Especially when team fighting, and a ping communicates more than saying anything. If it chooses to work.

When I queue with other people, I’m generally playing with people who have around a 70% win rate just like I do. Even when we aren’t even trying, like running 5 melee, there’s not really any pressure on me to lose the game. Mostly because most players I face can’t exert that pressure on me, unless a teammate or two is hard feeding; a premade removes that.

Here’s the other problem. Five vs five stack when you don’t want to is stupid un fun. It’s cool to pop into a game with another five stack of your friends and duke it out, but the games are vastly different from your normal games. Everyone puts on their stone pants and says push me. Then thirty minutes later, your some what frustrated at the game, sweaty, no one’s went anywhere and you end up winning because you killed them 3 more times woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

You see the games just bound to explode because neither methods are good for it.

Though I think the whole crushing pubstomps are ruining the game is pretty exaggerated because even when I play duo I rarely come across a 5 stack and my last four stack I was in a five stack.

Have you ever thought maybe people just don’t like the game? When people lose they always point to the first frustrating aspect. In this case its the big bad pubstomp. Also those changes would prolly kill what’s left of this game anyways.

#19

exactly that, I play with friends but we spend time talking about other games or movies normally

#20

During the AMA hosted on the Unofficial Battleborn Discord server @Jythri briefly spoke on this issue. He refers to it as, “first look woes”.

Though I’m pasting out of context here I think the message is pretty clear, or at least I hope so. Please note, the spelling errors are his own :smile_cat:

We do have some future plans to attrack new players, and are working on some things like a better opening Tutorial and experience for new players, a bit of rebalancing on how characters are unlocked, and a better separation between new players and the experienced competitive community taht should help alleviate some of those “first look woes”.

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