Do SCs need a makeover? Balancing?

[Aethilmar]

My $0.02:

The problem of getting stomped will never be solved. It is a PvP game, there are winners and losers and sometimes the losers get crushed.

HOWEVER, there used to be more underdog-friendly scenarios that allowed the side being dominated to do something besides get farmed. For example, the five-flag scenarios (e.g. Blood and Thunder Valley) used to allow you to uncap mid by taking the back flags. This would allow the "underdog" side to play spoiler and occasionally get some kills. They were turned into progressive cap scenarios though and essentially became murder boxes.

PUGs can (and will) try to compete against premades if they are given a chance to get their feet under them. By definition they are people who were just thrown together and they may need a few minutes to work stuff out. But the removal of guards and the addition of barriers made this all but impossible because they have no chance to put things together.

I have PUG-ged SCs on live and here for a long, long time. I have fought many premades in PUGs and actually had a lot of fun doing so with even some wins. However, the hyper-focus by the current caretakers on "earning" your wins through head-to-head combat and forcing group play has really taken the joy out of them.

And, ironically, it has basically taught the entire population to surrender as fast as possible because once you start losing there is really no point in trying because the devs themselves have removed the reasons.

Anyway, in summary:
1) Never going to fix the queues so don't bother
2) Bring back more of the scenarios that have "alternative" paths to victory over head-to-head fighting
3) Make the spawns a safe spot for PUGs to get a feel for playing together by bringing back guards and removing shields.

[Shima]

A premade doesnt need to be in group to get in a sc together. I got tired to face premades in pug sc.

In fact, nothing can stop the stomping in sc definitive. There are only ways to mitigate the problem.

And I wouldn't spect they would see this thread and think "oh thats a good idea, lets make these changes". They won't!

[Helwer]

Long time ago i really did lot sc but recently started with my tank again. My thoughts: With dps you should better forget, 20 weekend-warfront sc with no kills and no win are usual - as heal i noticed strange things like getting matched with 3 other healers in group and 5 or more in 2 groups. As tank you have at least options to get some extra renown and crests with Protection and Objective score. But also as tank i leave sc and stop playing sc when i get matches 2 times with no heal vs 2/2/2 or even premade.

So i think there is a match-making issue despite low population and there were solutions like group-finder or at least archetype-finder mentioned before but never realized. Ofc i wouldn't join q with the 20th dps while i have a heal and tank to level up. Probably not realistic, don't know but some official info would be nice, yes. And i agree with most other suggestions here - save spaces without getting farmed for no reason, discordant weekend-sc, pug vs pug/prem vs prem, at least nearly same numbers of heal/dps/tank vs each other if possible.

[Sulorie]

Those odd setups are easy to explain. People queue at different times and after a certain time SC pop happen. The MM can only pick from who is in queue. Eventually it will start SC with zero healers to avoid waiting much longer. If then healers join the queue, they will get a pop as well after some time, even if it means 5 healers being in one party. Those healers are then missing in player pool and until their sc finishes the MM won't have them to form proper team setups.

For this reason city matchups in the first instances are 2-2-2 balanced but the last instances get whoever is left if enough are there to start an instance, those are the fun 20+ DD instances.

When you enforce 1 healer minimum, forget about equalizing healer numbers, that's not needed, give players proper feedback about who is in queue or in ongoing matches, so players can selection appropriate classes.

[Nameless]

Just bring info about classes at queu same as ranked frame so ppl try to self regulate the system. This doesnt even take much effort to be done cos it exist already.
Basically it take less time and codding compare to adding more barriers and useless wc buffs

[Everdin]

All hopeing for a holy soltution from the devs. First solution should be made by players.

First things that have to happen to make things better is educate yourself and others.

Stomps happen not only cause of premade vs pug, but because of lack of teamplay (premades are just better regarding this).

Scenarios with 1 Grp all dps and the others 3 tanks 3 healers, Scenarios where people split to fight unnecessary fights or retreat from an ongoing fights to tap flags, shifting the balance and causing a full wipe.
Tanks refusing to guard, healers going full in meleemode (not talking about melee dok/priest), dps running alone into masses of enemys without guard, dps refusing essential abilitys like healdebuff...list could go on and on.

Solo players should que for discordant only, at least during week, you want changes in your favor, show you use the things that the game provides, no reason outside from WW to go grp sc.

A premade doesnt need to be in group to get in a sc together. I got tired to face premades in pug sc.

In fact, nothing can stop the stomping in sc definitive. There are only ways to mitigate the problem.

And I wouldn't spect they would see this thread and think "oh thats a good idea, lets make these changes". They won't!

Report them, record them, prove it.

Just because you get stomped does not mean there is a premade

[Turdy]

Well, one option could be to put "Join as a party" and "Join solo" in 2 separated que instances, so premades meet premades and randoms meet randoms.. Would prolly free some que slots since its always in prime time and such that SC's stops popping and theres only 20 premades screaming for more players, so it seems like groups has prio over solo quers anyways. Match making would be prolly hard to execute since if you need X spec, and theres just handful of those, it would be worse for ques.. But at same time i am kinda sick of meeting pure tank+heal setups back to back.

EDIT: And prolly some of these +3 party SC's shouldnt prolly even exist to split ques and reduce the imbalance that there even CANT be any 7tank 7hybrids 4aoe nonsenses.

[Rapzel]

Report them, record them, prove it.

Just because you get stomped does not mean there is a premade

Obvious premade troll. Every time anyone loses it's because of premade, but you ez mode premade players can't even begin to fathom how you ruin the game for everyone else. I've spent 200+ hrs in the min/max tool just to create the perfect tank build. I have built a tank with 1078 toughness, 1153 wounds, that has a regen of 824 hp4. I reach 45% block and 65% parry, with 6238 armour. Still I die to these ez mode loser players who need to group as 6 to win an SC. If us solo players had 5 other players at our skill level you wouldn't be yapping. But keep ruining the game with your premade who keep farming solo players for your KDA ratio instead of showing real skill, with capping BOs.

[nocturnalguest]

Report them, record them, prove it.

Just because you get stomped does not mean there is a premade

Obvious premade troll. Every time anyone loses it's because of premade, but you ez mode premade players can't even begin to fathom how you ruin the game for everyone else. I've spent 200+ hrs in the min/max tool just to create the perfect tank build. I have built a tank with 1078 toughness, 1153 wounds, that has a regen of 824 hp4. I reach 45% block and 65% parry, with 6238 armour. Still I die to these ez mode loser players who need to group as 6 to win an SC. If us solo players had 5 other players at our skill level you wouldn't be yapping. But keep ruining the game with your premade who keep farming solo players for your KDA ratio instead of showing real skill, with capping BOs.

Epic! Kudos

[Culexus]

Obvious premade troll. Every time anyone loses it's because of premade, but you ez mode premade players can't even begin to fathom how you ruin the game for everyone else. I've spent 200+ hrs in the min/max tool just to create the perfect tank build. I have built a tank with 1078 toughness, 1153 wounds, that has a regen of 824 hp4. I reach 45% block and 65% parry, with 6238 armour. Still I die to these ez mode loser players who need to group as 6 to win an SC. If us solo players had 5 other players at our skill level you wouldn't be yapping. But keep ruining the game with your premade who keep farming solo players for your KDA ratio instead of showing real skill, with capping BOs.

That made me full-on belly laugh fair play