Playing with friends - The struggle.

(triteTongs) #1

Playing with friends is impossible on objective servers now. You can also do private servers, but let’s be honest here… the average player is not going to sign up to do some pugs in some random mumble server JUST so he can play with his friend(s). So. Playing with friends is now limited to public stopwatch or competitive stopwatch games.

But here’s single biggest issue with the new system.
Stopwatch blows.

You know the outcome of stopwatch games most of the time. Once you lose pace, it’s over. Not to mention it takes up to 30 minutes to finish a single game. I’ve only had one stopwatch game out of my 300 hours that was genuinely close (winning within 2 seconds). The rest were pretty predictable and forgettable.

MEANWHILE, Objective games can be interesting until the very last second. They end a lot quicker too. I remember a lot more close calls and clutch moments in objective games than I’ve EVER seen in stopwatch.

So why wasn’t objective mode EVER an option for competitive games?
Why hasn’t dirty bomb developed a party system for unranked pub play yet?

These options should have been out before open beta even hit when the player peak was at an all time high for testing.

(SnakekillerX) #2

I’m just grateful I still have this option, as I don’t always have enough available friends to start a private server let alone fill one.

[quote=“triteTongs;18065”]But here’s single biggest issue with the new system.
Stopwatch blows.

You know the outcome of stopwatch games most of the time. Once you lose pace, it’s over. Not to mention it takes up to 30 minutes to finish a single game.[/quote]

This is more of an opinion really, I don’t hate stopwatch, but I tend to play it less just because it takes a bit longer at times. However the games that DO last near the 30 minute mark are the most intense, and usually most balanced games to play.

This is the best case scenario, appreciate these.

Objective CAN be interesting to the last second, but they can also be completely uninteresting the whole match too, this again falls under player skill balance. If you are getting steam rolled, or doing the rolling yourself its never as fun as having a close game and winning.

Because the maps are not always balanced when it comes to attacking vs defending. However if you are forced to play both sides, it eliminates that unbalance.

While I would also like to be able to play with my friends and on the same team, this again causes unbalance. What if you queued up in quick match game by yourself, and ended up against a whole clan on the other team? What if they proceed to completely dominate your team? What if this became a common occurrence?

I could see a lot of people rage quitting the game because of something like this.

This is why it should probably stay competitive only. At least we have the option of Private Servers if we really do insist on playing with friends in a non-competitive way.

You do also still have the option of playing together… you just might not be on the same team every map.

(MissMurder) #3

Thanks for your thoughts on this. Very very curious to hear how it ends up affecting everyone.

(triteTongs) #4

While I would also like to be able to play with my friends and on the same team, this again causes unbalance. What if you queued up in quick match game by yourself, and ended up against a whole clan on the other team? What if they proceed to completely dominate your team? What if this became a common occurrence?

I could see a lot of people rage quitting the game because of something like this.

This is why it should probably stay competitive only. At least we have the option of Private Servers if we really do insist on playing with friends in a non-competitive way.

You do also still have the option of playing together… you just might not be on the same team every map.[/quote]

CSGO handles this just fine.
HOTS handles it fine.
Rocket league handles it fine.
Many other games with matchmaking can handle it just fine. Those games tend to pair similar skilled parties against other parties and fill the gaps with solo players.

Why can’t dirty bomb handle it?

And you should NOT be forced to play unranked private servers JUST TO PLAY WITH FRIENDS.
You seriously cannot expect the average player to jump through hoops just to do that. This also takes out the players from the public pool for balancing. I see only 6 filled stopwatch servers with acceptable ping these days. I have no idea if it’s because of private servers, but that’s honestly pathetic.

[quote=“SnakekillerX;85425”]
Objective CAN be interesting to the last second, but they can also be completely uninteresting the whole match too, this again falls under player skill balance. If you are getting steam rolled, or doing the rolling yourself its never as fun as having a close game and winning.[/quote]

You can get steamrolled in stopwatch now too. In fact you could always steamroll in stopwatch. But it’s a lot more boring to deal with. 15 minutes of waiting. That’s an entire game of objective.

I like quick games. If a team is doing bad, just let it end and reshuffle the teams for the next game.

(shatteredhalo0) #5

They must have run the numbers and decided that solo queuing players make them more money than people that mostly play with friends.

(birdhorse) #6

i’ll occasionally check friends playing and join off of them, it felt borked for a time, but last patch corrected that. Usually i don’t bother playing with friends, tedious to sort out as you can usually never be on the same side.

(GodsMistake) #7

Ive been offline for a couple of days (iPad does not count) and I am getting the update as we speak. After 9 billion years on this planet, this I can say unequivocally:

Remember, this is a beta. Im not even going to bother addressing the pseudo logic “if you can pay for stuff, its not a beta, etc.” The bottom line is, the game is not a finished product. The developers have a vision and certain changes may seem like a great idea at the time, the community does not agree with the changes.

I worked in print publishing as the Creative Director for a company for many years and I have been through the gamut of “you’re the best designer we’ve ever met” to “who taught you design, Helen Keller?” and all I want to say is this: let’s make sure we keep all our criticisms toward things that will help the game evolve. Tuesday morning quarterbacking is always easy, but the developers may have taken a different approach to the problem.

Some of these things that you think are missing were in fact new features introduced into games years ago that people back then lamented as definitive proof of the coming apocalypse of gaming as we know it. I think it is very premature to sound the death knell for the game. Alpha, beta, etc software used to be hidden away from the public. So lets make sure positive feedback comes in to the developers rather than outright gripes. When I say positive i really mean constructive because nobody enjoys their hard work crapped on.

I am NOT picking on trite and I do apologize if I appear that way. I am just trying to offer some perspective to the 4 billion other posts coming right after this one.

(and if your job does in fact involve getting crapped on for money, you probably should have stayed in school like mom said :wink: )

[quote=“triteTongs;18065”]Playing with friends is impossible on objective servers now. You can also do private servers, but let’s be honest here… the average player is not going to sign up to do some pugs in some random mumble server JUST so he can play with his friend(s). So. Playing with friends is now limited to public stopwatch or competitive stopwatch games.

But here’s single biggest issue with the new system.
Stopwatch blows.

You know the outcome of stopwatch games most of the time. Once you lose pace, it’s over. Not to mention it takes up to 30 minutes to finish a single game. I’ve only had one stopwatch game out of my 300 hours that was genuinely close (winning within 2 seconds). The rest were pretty predictable and forgettable.

MEANWHILE, Objective games can be interesting until the very last second. They end a lot quicker too. I remember a lot more close calls and clutch moments in objective games than I’ve EVER seen in stopwatch.

So why wasn’t objective mode EVER an option for competitive games?
Why hasn’t dirty bomb developed a party system for unranked pub play yet?

These options should have been out before open beta even hit when the player peak was at an all time high for testing.

[/quote]

(Pharandymon) #8

Here are my thoughts on the matter.

Okay, so I have 2-3 friends that play the game with me, not at the same time though but I usually play with 1 friend at a time and if I am lucky we play 3 :slight_smile:

Here’s the problem that occurs:
We as a group can’t even start a private match because of the minimum of 6 players. (I don’t want to add random people that play the game just to play a private match)
If we are 3 playing then it often becomes 2v1 so that one of us is on the other team, which is not fun.

I would want:
A small party of 2-3 players that is placed on the same team. This limit ensures that you can play with your friends and the game will be more enjoyable because of it.

This is not a huge advantage on a 8v8 server and would create a more relaxed playsession when you know that you will be on the same team with your friends.

Hope this is something to be considered :slight_smile:

(triteTongs) #9

[quote="[L] GodsMistake;85492"]Ive been offline for a couple of days (iPad does not count) and I am getting the update as we speak. After 9 billion years on this planet, this I can say unequivocally:

Remember, this is a beta. Im not even going to bother addressing the pseudo logic “if you can pay for stuff, its not a beta, etc.” The bottom line is, the game is not a finished product. The developers have a vision and certain changes may seem like a great idea at the time, the community does not agree with the changes.
[/quote]

I understand this. Many people don’t.
It’s still first impressions for many. That’s why I don’t understand the whole early access and “it’s a beta” excuse. Once it’s uninstalled… it’s uninstalled. It’s hard to get those people re-interested and re-hyped.

I’d also point something out in regards to the current public objective games.
I’m level 31. This means I am ALWAYS on the team that can’t figure out how to play games (~level 8-15’s). I have to carry SO HARD in order to win these games it’s actually LESS enjoyable than soloing a stopwatch game.

And I know if I quit after the the game shuffles the lobby or during the match, my team will lose instantly.

I’d rather be on the team with two level 20’s instead of being a solo level 30 with a bunch of minions pushing every wave. At least I’ll have a teammate who understands how to play the game. (BTW, this is what friends are for and why you play team based shooters with teammates)

[quote=“SnakekillerX;85425”]
You do also still have the option of playing together… you just might not be on the same team every map.[/quote]

I forgot to mention one thing about this…
My friends are also high level (20+). Because I’m level 30+, it’s EXTREMELY RARE for my friend to ever be on my team. The game will ALWAYS split us up for ‘balance’.

If anything makes me want to hang this game up for good… it’s those reasons. Again, I keep getting the feeling that the game does not treat higher skilled players nicely. Once you cross that skill gap, the issues become incredibly apparent.

(Sinee) #10

This is by far the stupidest fucking change that’s been made. I don’t tend to be a critical nay-sayer about the dev’s decisions, but this… hooo boy. My partner and I play casual pub exclusively together and have for the hundreds of hours we’ve invested in this game, since it’s the game-mode we prefer. We can’t stand Stopwatch.

I’m his support. I have no desire to be against him. This directly impacts both of our experiences with this game.

I don’t get it. We can play together on CSGO? Why not this?

Omg I’m so pissed off about this. Gonna have to get my ass off the forums before I embarrass myself.

(Jurmabones) #11

It’s miserable. Several of my friends and I are likely going to quit playing this game just because you made it LITERALLY impossible to play on the same team as your friends. I can’t believe the short-sightedness into this decision.

And for what? Pandering to a handful of people on the forums whining about “team stacking”?

Comp is broken and you can’t do ANYTHING to play with a group besides that. Even before you still had to go through a bunch of bs just to get on the same team as even one friend.

Could only join servers with an odd number of players and no less than 3 or 4 open slots just to make sure your friend can join by the time your name shows up as in a server. If other people loaded within that time and you got on different teams, the person on offense would have to go spectate, since attackers gets a player first and defense would have to be one person down for them to join.

Apparently it wasn’t already garbage enough how it was, where you can’t join any pubs with friends and have to wait for all the planets to align to get on the same team. Now you just can’t even do it.

(D'@athi) #12

Hey don’t whine about it, it’s all your fault, the fault of the average long-time-players, playing together with friends, because you couldn’t teach noobs how to do these objectives.
Not the fault of people, not beeing giving the chance of playing the game through a really relevant and teaching tutorial, with the mention of classes and functions, and/or/so no one even wanting to learn how this game is played besides kd/r.
No, it’s all your fault. You only got some average aim, some average skill, still you try to use these objectives, and this merc’s special abilities, as some kind of extraordinary oppurtunity to win some matches vs these smart people. Disgusting, at best!
So plx go back to games like chess, where everyone is able to win. Thx.

(Merci1ess) #13

Are you guys trying to make the game better or are you guys trying to break it? This is a serious question. I have a friend I enjoy playing with. It’s what makes the game fun for me. Stop fucking up… Stop listening to the scrubs/noobs and making changes based on their complaints. People have friends they enjoy playing with… not against. I mean this is not breaking news here is it? People enjoy playing with friends? I think it’s been around for a while.

(Lumi) #14

I welcome the new system and I usually play with friends. Imo, even stopwatch should get it. Since the update, games are much more balanced. Stick to competitive if you want to play seriously with friends. Otherwise take a chill pill.

(Sinee) #15

Why do I have to play seriously in order to play with friends? Like… If you choose to play CASUAL obviously you want to play casually. Smh.

(Black) #16

The balancing seems to have gotten “better”, from my last few games but it’s never perfect.

I like how OP and the above users who are complaing about this think this is just plain black and white and can be easily fixed without problems when that is definitely not the case.

(Merci1ess) #17

First off… I highly doubt you have friends, no offense. If you had friends, I have no clue how you’d support this. “Play seriously with friends?” What? The point of a game is to have fun right? Even more so with friends? We’re talking about casual play here. If the complaints are that teams are unbalanced sometimes… It’s C.A.S.U.A.L. My girl and I get stomped sometimes and other times we steam roll. You win some, you lose some. If you wanna talk about balance and matchmaking then competitive is where you wanna focus your attention… Not casual. This is a complete joke.

(triteTongs) #18

[quote=“BlackFro;85558”]

I like how OP and the above users who are complaing about this think this is just plain black and white and can be easily fixed without problems when that is definitely not the case.[/quote]

No, it’s not black and white.
I know this.

The skill gap is pretty large so it needs a lot of players PLAYING in order to balance the games.
And you can’t balance a game with just 12 players in the server, there’s simply not enough people to get a good result.

Let’s assume they add a party system into the game. Now the servers shuffle your entire party intact. Great, right? Still doesn’t fix it. A solo high level player will always be facing an organized team now… UNLESS a random team of similar rank also joins that same server you are in to balance it out. Organized teams > a solo high level player (that’s just the way this game is built… with teamwork in mind). Server browsers are too RNG for balancing.

Ideally, I’d like to see the game consider the entire player pool. If you are a level 30? Get matched with another level 30. In a team of two? Get matched with another team of two. Drop in, Drop out. Ranked, unranked. Etc. Easy enough to pair up with friends.

Obviously this is so much harder now with less people playing. Even if they removed server browsers completely for a matchmaking system… it’ll likely fail. Too big of a change so late in the game and it’ll have a huge backlash. That’s why I mentioned why this should have been figured out before open beta.

IN ANY CASE, I can tell you that I’d rather be playing objective mode with friends though. That’s pretty black and white.

(Mister__Wiggles) #19

I personally haven’t seen a problem with getting on the same team as your friends, the games I played put me and my friend up against a 3 man team because we were level 28 and they were all below 10, which I think is questionable. I’m a firm believer that level means nothing in DB so more needs to be factored in to make this more fair for everyone.

(yummyFan) #20

[quote=“SnakekillerX;85425”][quote=“triteTongs;18065”]
You do also still have the option of playing together… you just might not be on the same team every map.[/quote]
Most people don’t call that ‘together’ but ‘against each other’. On one team is just more fun than against each other.

It also just blows my mind how they spend time on these type of changes while approximately 25-50% of their user base are ATI video card owners and I have yet to meet 1 that does not have the bloody FPS lag issues that has been there since May/June. I still have to restart the game after every 2nd match. And each time that happens I keep thinking “maybe I should do something else”, and I often do because like this the game is a constant roller coaster of up and FAR downs.