Lots of Numbers: Twilight's Tide Event Scenarios

[Sulorie]

great post and data collection ty for your work

my thoughts on how to "fix" the scenario issue. these are not ordered in importance, just numbered to list.


1. add specific live event SC queue to discordant (i.e. discordant serpent's passage/phoenix gate)
2. fix discordant matchmaking so that each party has at least 1 tank and 1 healer
3. add a ranked style UI where you can see exactly what is queueing for discordant SCs and know what role to log on for a faster queue or fairer matches
4. add new mechanic which grants bonuses for playing the least queued for roles in discordant if there are too few in the pool, small renown or crest bump in exchange for queueing up as a role that is needed in that moment (i.e. there are 8 tanks, 8 dps and 0 healers queued up and under fix #2's specifications a match would not fire, so queueing as a healer to fire a match grants a small bonus)
5. add barriers to all SCs but remove idle hands beyond the first pvp death. ensure that every SC has at least 1 fight at the start but don't force people to go out and feed for no reason, this is really silly and makes people not want to play.
...

1. is already happening for this live event

2. Hell no, very bad suggestion. SC wouldn't pop at all and people are stuck in queue for ages. There is no need for hard requirements, when you have experienced lots of SC wins without tanks or healers. It depends on the player quality as great offense can overcome tanks and heals if enemy healers are taken out quick. Ofc those are pug sc. A good premade will exploit the lack of heals and tanks.

3+4.
The incentive to swap to a needed class type is increased chance of winning, nothing else needed IMO. People have to see class distribution in queue like for ranked sc. This got requested a lot already and should be quite obvious.
For sake of fairness, people should have a fixed (hidden) position in queue, otherwise people are left out, while others get significantly more pops in a given time frame. This killed ranked queue for many. Seeing others of same class being preferred by matchmaking.

5. the opposite would be needed, removal of those barriers for anything but city siege or small sc spawns, where are can get hit from outside. The barriers remove all chances for a weaker team to get momentum back. When half your team dies, the few remaining survivors die too and can't be supported from spawn area in case the superior team does spawn camping. You can't force a premade to pull back my punting critical players into your own guards, in most sc the guards are totally useless too, wondering why they even exist. The latest sc changes with guards and barriers must be made by someone who wants to 100% dominate their opposition with no chance to fight back. Those are quite toxic changes and the opposite to increasing balance. The now extended spawn timers are fine but those where never the issue.
To sum it up: remove barrier everywhere beside city siege and small sc spawns. Add options to teleport to another exit to avoid spawn camping, add responsive guards, cannons, some obstacles as cover.

[Rydiak]

5. the opposite would be needed, removal of those barriers for anything but city siege or small sc spawns, where are can get hit from outside. The barriers remove all chances for a weaker team to get momentum back. When half your team dies, the few remaining survivors die too and can't be supported from spawn area in case the superior team does spawn camping. You can't force a premade to pull back my punting critical players into your own guards, in most sc the guards are totally useless too, wondering why they even exist. The latest sc changes with guards and barriers must be made by someone who wants to 100% dominate their opposition with no chance to fight back. Those are quite toxic changes and the opposite to increasing balance. The now extended spawn timers are fine but those where never the issue.

This!!! The SC barrier/guard change has easily been the most destructive change to SC health since the inception of this game. The ability to fight back from spawn has been all but completely removed, which has drastically increased the difficulty of fighting back from a "stomp" and thus has removed any incentive for players to fight after losing their first engagement. This change needs to be reverted as soon as humanly possible, with guards added back to spawns that have the ability to kill enemy players who get too close.

[gersy]

great post and data collection ty for your work

my thoughts on how to "fix" the scenario issue. these are not ordered in importance, just numbered to list.


1. add specific live event SC queue to discordant (i.e. discordant serpent's passage/phoenix gate)
2. fix discordant matchmaking so that each party has at least 1 tank and 1 healer
3. add a ranked style UI where you can see exactly what is queueing for discordant SCs and know what role to log on for a faster queue or fairer matches
4. add new mechanic which grants bonuses for playing the least queued for roles in discordant if there are too few in the pool, small renown or crest bump in exchange for queueing up as a role that is needed in that moment (i.e. there are 8 tanks, 8 dps and 0 healers queued up and under fix #2's specifications a match would not fire, so queueing as a healer to fire a match grants a small bonus)
5. add barriers to all SCs but remove idle hands beyond the first pvp death. ensure that every SC has at least 1 fight at the start but don't force people to go out and feed for no reason, this is really silly and makes people not want to play.
...

1. is already happening for this live event

2. Hell no, very bad suggestion. SC wouldn't pop at all and people are stuck in queue for ages. There is no need for hard requirements, when you have experienced lots of SC wins without tanks or healers. It depends on the player quality as great offense can overcome tanks and heals if enemy healers are taken out quick. Ofc those are pug sc. A good premade will exploit the lack of heals and tanks.

3+4.
The incentive to swap to a needed class type is increased chance of winning, nothing else needed IMO. People have to see class distribution in queue like for ranked sc. This got requested a lot already and should be quite obvious.
For sake of fairness, people should have a fixed (hidden) position in queue, otherwise people are left out, while others get significantly more pops in a given time frame. This killed ranked queue for many. Seeing others of same class being preferred by matchmaking.

5. the opposite would be needed, removal of those barriers for anything but city siege or small sc spawns, where are can get hit from outside. The barriers remove all chances for a weaker team to get momentum back. When half your team dies, the few remaining survivors die too and can't be supported from spawn area in case the superior team does spawn camping. You can't force a premade to pull back my punting critical players into your own guards, in most sc the guards are totally useless too, wondering why they even exist. The latest sc changes with guards and barriers must be made by someone who wants to 100% dominate their opposition with no chance to fight back. Those are quite toxic changes and the opposite to increasing balance. The now extended spawn timers are fine but those where never the issue.
To sum it up: remove barrier everywhere beside city siege and small sc spawns. Add options to teleport to another exit to avoid spawn camping, add responsive guards, cannons, some obstacles as cover.

clearly you didn't read anything i said really so idk why i'm even replying but

1. its not done properly, you cannot queue for specifically those afaik. just that those maps are added in to the discordant lottery. which was not my suggestion.

2/3/4. are a bundle of changes not individual, they are meant to work together and has nothing to do with position in queue it only allows you to queue as a needed role to make fairer games pop.

5. barriers imo are fine, the idle hands debuff is the issue. i believe that ensuring 1 good attempt at a fight occurs is the best option, rather than doing this useless defense buff that does absolutely nothing. my idea is to force players to fight once, but not to force them to feed.

[Akalukz]

Just turn off group queueing for 2 weeks and allow only solo queues. See how it works. With a Solo Ranked UI and class requirements.

[Aluviya]

Just turn off group queueing for 2 weeks and allow only solo queues. See how it works. With a Solo Ranked UI and class requirements.

And what exactly will that bring aside of stacking issues?

[doky]

today:
1 win
21 loss
15 kills in that one win, 0 kills in 21 loss.
solo queue experience

[Sulorie]

clearly you didn't read anything i said really so idk why i'm even replying but

1. its not done properly, you cannot queue for specifically those afaik. just that those maps are added in to the discordant lottery. which was not my suggestion.

2/3/4. are a bundle of changes not individual, they are meant to work together and has nothing to do with position in queue it only allows you to queue as a needed role to make fairer games pop.

5. barriers imo are fine, the idle hands debuff is the issue. i believe that ensuring 1 good attempt at a fight occurs is the best option, rather than doing this useless defense buff that does absolutely nothing. my idea is to force players to fight once, but not to force them to feed.

There is a saying of "you give a finger and they take the whole hand", which is the whole pug sc discussion in a nutshell.
Pug sc added, not enough, event sc in pug sc pool, not enough.
The event sc tasks itself are not difficult to complete within the whole event duration, even without a premade.
You are not supposed to cheese through the event tasks my picking a certain pug sc.
It's just another option with most likely more time consumption but less stressing gameplay.
It's not like I haven't read your post, you just have unrealistic expectations for how easy the event tasks should become.

Having a hard requirement for class types, which isn't even needed to have fun and win, will kill sc pops and nothing you propose will solve it. People don't even fix groups in sc to balance them, you think they will check classes in queue as a condition to even have sc pops? It's not happening.

The spawn camping will still happen no matter the class setup, you put too much emphasis on archetypes, when this is only one factor among many and no major one.

[vanbuinen77]

Easy, remove scenarios.

[gersy]

clearly you didn't read anything i said really so idk why i'm even replying but

1. its not done properly, you cannot queue for specifically those afaik. just that those maps are added in to the discordant lottery. which was not my suggestion.

2/3/4. are a bundle of changes not individual, they are meant to work together and has nothing to do with position in queue it only allows you to queue as a needed role to make fairer games pop.

5. barriers imo are fine, the idle hands debuff is the issue. i believe that ensuring 1 good attempt at a fight occurs is the best option, rather than doing this useless defense buff that does absolutely nothing. my idea is to force players to fight once, but not to force them to feed.

There is a saying of "you give a finger and they take the whole hand", which is the whole pug sc discussion in a nutshell.
Pug sc added, not enough, event sc in pug sc pool, not enough.
The event sc tasks itself are not difficult to complete within the whole event duration, even without a premade.
You are not supposed to cheese through the event tasks my picking a certain pug sc.
It's just another option with most likely more time consumption but less stressing gameplay.
It's not like I haven't read your post, you just have unrealistic expectations for how easy the event tasks should become.

Having a hard requirement for class types, which isn't even needed to have fun and win, will kill sc pops and nothing you propose will solve it. People don't even fix groups in sc to balance them, you think they will check classes in queue as a condition to even have sc pops? It's not happening.

The spawn camping will still happen no matter the class setup, you put too much emphasis on archetypes, when this is only one factor among many and no major one.

my suggestions are not just for the event SCs, but for reworking discordant as a whole in favor of making the SC experience a little better for newer and more casual players or simply those who enjoy the solo queue experience while their teammates are unavailable. the event statistics are expected due to the nature of obtaining bis items from farming players and making it very hard for pugs to win and complete the live event.

they are difficult to complete during the whole duration as purely solo queueing because you will get farmed or have to play 50-100 matches depending on your luck and skill level to finish what is required for the live event. this is problematic because it puts off people from wanting to play SCs.

trust me, i don't want the game to become easier for solos to an extent that it kills the reason for the genre (making friends, joining guilds, playing in teams, etc.) i'm a firm believer that everyone should make their own "premade" and join a guild and play with friends.

however at the same time we must look at it from a player retention and enjoyment standpoint. a lot of newer or casual players are unhappy with current state of SC, being relentlessly farmed and being forced to take quitter if they don't want to be cannon fodder.

having requirements for archetypes in discordant just means fairer/more balanced games instead of 8 shaman 8 chosen vs 8 WH and 8 SW.

i don't think what i am asking for is unrealistic, minor changes if anything but you are free to disagree and have your own opinion of course this is just my ideas for how the discordant system could be improved.

[lumpi33]

Pug sc added, not enough, event sc in pug sc pool, not enough.

An incomplete solution is incomplete and wont work well. A car without wheels is incomplete as well and wont drive well either.

What they have added was not what people requested.
- When you queue for discordant you cannot choose what you want you play.
- Up till now you couldn't play event scs in discordant and you still cannot select that you want to play event scs in discordant.
- The normal group scenarios are pulling people away from the discordant mode because a) in discord you couldn't do event scs (till now) and cannot select event scenarios specifically and b) they are popping slowly because of a) since people want to do the event tasks for rewards. Of course there are not enough people for discordant than. No solo would EVER queue for grouped scenarios if they could avoid them and play what they want to.
- Nothing has been done to counter the queue abusing by queuing at the same time or queuing as group. They know about this issue since many years. The meat grinder goes on.
- Nothing has been done to counter pops without tanks or healers on one side which are pretty much unplayable and instant loss.
- Nothing has been done to the groups creating new instances and the enemy side being filled up with pugs.

This as a whole is far from a complete and working solution. It's not working, not for the premade players because they are being bored by the pug enemies and not by the pug players because they are being stomped and stand no chance. How could anybody think that this is a working solution?

Solos were forced to join the normal scenarios just to do the event tasks. Now they can do it in discordant but they cannot choose that they want to play event scs and will again queue for normal event scenarios just to get the tasks done. That is probably the evil plan behind this. The design pulls solos into the group meat grinder. That's the reason there are not enough discordant pops. It's awful. This design clearly throws new/casuals/pugs towards farming groups.

The event sc tasks itself are not difficult to complete within the whole event duration, even without a premade.

Right, lol. Just because you are having groups to do them doesn't mean it is easy for casuals/pugs who queue up.

today:
1 win
21 loss
15 kills in that one win, 0 kills in 21 loss.
solo queue experience

There are so many things wrong with that scenarios. Solutions have been provided in this thread already. It's on the devs if they WANT TO make it better for solos or let them being farmed until they quit.