It always disappoints me when I hear from new players how often they get matched against pubstompers who go full try-hard in every match, regardless of their opponents. The lifespan of this game relies on an engaged and interactive community. Nothing threatens the future of Battleborn more than the behavior of their most-experienced players. That is why some members of the r/Battleborn subreddit created a group of experienced players who are dedicated to mentoring newer players. I’ve attached a link to the list of BattleBros for all 3 platforms. I am one of them (Xbox GT: Joes Os).
Feel free to add these players to your Friends list and reach out to them if you would like some help, have a question, or just want to play with them to see what it’s like.
Part of the matchmaking problem is due to the experience demographics of the playerbase, with a relatively large experience gap between OG Battleborn players like myself and relatively newer converts who are just getting into PvP. It’s a delicate balancing act for Gearbox to weigh matchmaking times against how valuable assembling an ideally-matched team against another is. This gap threatened matchmaking when people would bail once they saw their opponents’ Command Ranks, making superficial judgments about the quality and outcome of the potential game. Gearbox attempted to prevent people from dropping out of matchmaking by concealing Command Ranks from that page, but most players know you can still see your allies’ and enemies’ Command Ranks if you click on a GT/PSN/Steam ID on the Scoreboard.
Some might allege that they didn’t know their opponents’ CRs while they ruthlessly beat down their opponents, spawn camp every chance, and taunt after every kill into the double-digits, but there’s an element of sportsmanship that some gamers value and others simply do not.
On the other hand, it can be frustrating for an experienced player to be paired on team with experienced players against mostly noobs. It is better to play through a game than disconnect or surrender out of guilt or a misguided attempt to placate noobs by giving them a W and then reentering the matchmaking queue. When I’m paired against a noob-heavy team, I generally stick to playing the objective (killing minions in Meltdown, Varelsi in Face-Off, sentries in Incursion, and unattended points in Capture). I’ll try not to single out players who are obviously clueless. I’ll only kill a player who is attacking my noob teammates (sometimes I’ll purposefully stick with noobs to defend them) or myself if I can’t escape. I’ll often invite newer players to my party or send them a message of encouragement or an offer to help. I hope other experienced players employ these strategies as well because it’s both short-sighted and unrealistic to farm noob kills every round and then hop onto the forums or social media to lament the “death” of Battleborn.
In short, there is no way to legislate noob-stomping out of the game. There can only be Gearbox’s efforts to improve matchmaking through smarter algorithms and player diversification, and the community’s dedication to the development of its new players, not their domination.
What makes me sad is that it’s impossible for a premade to queue for Quick Match now (on PS4) and not end up stomping, because the population of that queue is almost entirely new players. Meanwhile, Incursion is a gross boring game mode riddled with filthy birds.
As things stand, I can no longer have a good game of Meltdown with my friends. I can solo/duo queue and get “fair” games (albeit I end up becoming bloatedly over-fed because new players don’t know how to stop Mellka - I had a Coldsnap game last night where I hit level 9 while everyone else was level 4 at most.) But my lag is terrible and I miss the company.
I am sad. This game makes me sad. Hurry up winter patch.
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jaden374
(PSN = Jaden8675309 Send me a Friend Req to Team up :0)
#23
You do know most of those new people eventually become the next wave of fresh starry eyed vets though, yah? Give them time and they will be pwning with you
Hope many of the new people stay. I love the influx of low CR peeps
Yes it was grim. I carried each game anyway, but it’s just not fun when your toughest opposition is the server. It’s like being CC’d for thirty minutes.
It took me twenty-five minutes to find the first match though, so once I had my solo queue team, you better believe I stuck with it, haha.
It definitely feels like that on ps4. my brother and I did a match last night where we were 4 vs 5, us being the 4 man team. Our team stomped them hard, even being down a player. it left my brother and I quite shocked. there really needs to be some kind of balance or matchmaking because it is going to kill the game. telling experienced players to be nice is not going to fix the problem that is for sure.
