I was originally going to make two seperate posts for this, but since the two problems somewhat coincide, I felt like it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to put them both into one post. Some of you are probably not going to want to read all of this, and devs may be busy, so here. TL;DR 1: Disabling Role-Optional Alerts doesn't work because of people blindly queueing up as both roles. This needs to be fixed. TL;DR 2: There really should be a setting that can be turned on manually (but is off by default, so as to not disrupt players that don't want it on) that prevents players from being put into instances with overgeared players. So now that that's out of the way, I can get into more detail. First thing's first. There is an option in the Gameplay section of the Settings menu called "Enable Role-Optional Alerts". The idea is, if you turn it off (it's on by default), the game will not put you into a queue until it has found a balanced group of roles. Obviously, the point of the setting was intended to be that you won't get thrown into a group of all DPSs, or just a generally unbalanced group. The problem here is, it is completely useless when the game checks for people who have queued up as both roles. Most players (especially newer ones) do this constantly, whether it's because they don't know a lot about the importance of roles, or they're just trying to speed the queue up, or don't know about the setting, or whatever. Regardless, I've seen people that I've grouped up with do this countless times, even in higher-tier content. And this causes issues, because rarely do they even try to use their alt roles when they get pulled in. So what we end up with is groups consisting of nothing but DPSs- the exact problem the setting was implemented for in the first place. Now I've been racking my brain trying to figure out a reasonable solution to this problem. The devs could change the setting to where it only checks what role you're currently in, but then people who actually are skilled at both roles and can switch out on the fly would be gimped. (I still think it would be better that way than it is now, though.) It could also, perhaps, check to see if the player has an alternate armory for their secondary role, but that may be a bit more complicated to implement. Regardless, the setting, as it stands now, is useless, and really, any change at all to make it less so would be an improvement. I'm hoping to spark a discussion on ideas for the most reasonable way to go about this. Now some of you might be thinking, "Why not just try to find some super-high-CR players to help you?" That brings me to my second point. I, for one, am quite tired of going into an instance with the intention of testing my characters' abilities (or just have a fun, challenging time), just to have 3 169 DPSs plow through everything. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that the community has so many high CR players that are trying to help lower-tier players get through things faster. I really do. But I, personally, just prefer a challenge. And when I'm trying to build up a new character, it's hard to really gauge how well I'm doing, or how good the power I'm using is. This is especially true for aspiring tanks, as it seems like they're utterly useless in these scenarios, but it applies to all roles. I'm sure there are others that feel the same way. They've tried to fix this problem in the past, by scaling the difficulty of the instances based on the average CR of the group, but it backfired HARD when the instances became so difficult, even the high CR players were getting demolished. This actually caused me to stop playing for about a year, because I could rarely actually finish a raid, even with a group of t6s at my back. My league leader at the time and several other members also quit because of this change. I have a rather simple solution, though. Couldn't the devs just create a Setting that players can turn on (it can be off by default, since most players don't check their settings) that keeps them from being placed into instances with players that are of a higher tier than the content they are trying to run? It would function similarly to how the aforementioned "Enable Role-Optional Alerts" setting is supposed to function. Players who feel similarly to how I feel about this would have a solution, while players who would rather just speed through everything would be virtually unaffected (because again, it would be turned off by default). It seems like a win/win situation, and also seems much less complicated to implement and less likely to backfire than their past efforts have been. I feel like these two issues, if addressed, would make a lot of players happy, and make the game more interesting, fun, and well-balanced for those that want it, without having any negative effects on players that are fine with the way it is now. Sorry for the wall of text, but I wanted to bring these issues to the attention of more players, and hopefully, some devs as well.
Mepps has stated that they are reluctant to implement filters in the queuing system. They are afraid it will lengthen queue times which they really want to avoid.
Both problems have already been addressed by the devs. The answer was " Forget about it". Not happening, as it would hurt the average queue time. If you want to test out your character there are sparring targets in the HQ for that. So sad but so true.
I honestly don't think it would lengthen queue times that much, except for those that had this option turned on, which should really be expected if someone turned it on. For other players, though, I doubt it would increase that much. A pretty good number of players don't edit their settings at all, and of those that do, there are likely quite a few that wouldn't change this setting anyways. But I still feel that there are more than enough that would want to do so to warrant implementing it. Besides, I think slightly longer queue times are a better outcome than players losing interest in the game out of sheer boredom, which is happening at a fairly alarming rate, at least in my experience with talking to other players in-game. I don't even remember the last time I was in an alert or raid that didn't have a super high CR player in it AND had a good balance of roles. I wouldn't have a problem with it if it were a less common problem, but it has gotten way out of hand recently
Problem with that is that if high end players or unbalanced groups are actually destroying new players enjoyment of the game then the queue times are going to suffer anyway because new people aren't going to be able to experience the game they way it is intended And they will just walk away
Well u might not think it will. Many others might not think it will too. Point is what they think. DBG. Or the devs. What they think matters. And none of us have any data to show that players are losing interest because of sheer boredom. Yes people do state that on here sometimes. But the forums are a very small % of the playerbase. And tbh idek how people stay in the lower tiers long enough to let it be a problem. Yea it happens. But if u play more then 30mins a week and run the content u will get drops that take ya to the next tier and beyond and it happens quickly. The game is even setup for this to happen. That is why people are able to get toons to t7 or t8 in 24hrs or less.
That's not really true at all. A large majority of players take more than 24 hours to get that far. I doubt anyone could do it in less than 24 hours simply because it takes time to go through an instance. Regardless, if someone wanted to do it quickly, they would need 1). an active and helpful league, which not everyone Is in, and 2). lots of replay badges, which cost money. And if people get bored with how mind-numbingly easy the game is, they won't stick around long enough to ever get that far. Additionally, the way things are right now, new players never end up needing to actually learn their role, because they get their hands held all the way up to the highest tiers, and then they're left clueless. It's a pretty destructive system on the playerbase. In regards to the comment about the forums representing a small % of the plYerbase: Most of the feedback devs get comes from the forums. It's irrelevant how much of the playerbase comes here, because we represent the relationship between consumer and producer way more strongly than any other body. The forums are the catalyst for almost every change the devs make. And if we just stopped trying to change anything because "what the devs think is all that matters", then nothing would ever change. If you don't voice your concerns, they won't get addressed.
1) i'm not sure this is something that the devs can really fix. they'd have to fix the mentality of players which i don't think there's a patch for that. lol 2) devs will probably make the excuse that it slows down queues..personally i'm for it. more customization is better. and i'm all for separate queues for a fully disabled suicide squad thing.
People have done it and posted vids of them doing it with the timelines. Some used replays and bought iconic drops like abra chest to make it go faster and others didnt. And there are tons of players who dont agree with anything that people say on these forums, trust me on that. Some even think these forums are a big detriment to the game. And this concern has been addressed before. By players on here and the devs. That was my point. Im not saying u shouldnt address it. By all means. But there has been discussions about it numerous times and no1 seems to have an answer to fix the problem. And regardless if u or i think queue times wont be longer, like i said they do. They stated that as a reason not to do a few different options. Also sorry if i came across rude. Didnt mean to at all. Was just trying to get to the point. My bad. And if someone can come up with an idea to fix the problem that actually works for everyone then again by all means lets hear it. But like i said no1 has. People just keep saying the problem is there and repeating the same solutions over and over. Even tho the devs have dismissed those solutions as not viable.
Making que times longer would be devastating. Pugging is the most common way of running content but not so much end content, people fom their own groups for that for the most part.
This never happened. What happened was that first they didn't apply CR differential to players being higher CR than the NPC so they didn't overpower lower tier instances. That was only on test, some guy made a video getting killed in Batcave, the community cried nerf and the devs extended CR differential. Then they pushed it live and some lower tier instances were way too hard because lots of NPCs were non-standardized so the update screwed them up. Then they pushed another update fixing those out of line NPCs and reducing the stats of all NPCs across the board for lower tiers to make everything easy again. Anyway, agreed with your two issues even though people will come in again and dismiss them for being "forum problems". The role-optional issue is hard to fix. Checking for armories might work but then most people on lower tiers won't have multiple armories with full role setups. Really any filter they would implement to fix this would be easy to work around. If they check for gear, well I can have role gear and still run DPS. If they check for current role, no problem I will queue as Healer and then switch to DPS when I'm in. Higher CR in lower instances has two easy fixes but we won't get either of them: - "enter as current group" option in On Duty Menu to let higher CR solo stuff instantly and take them out of the queue, but of course since queue times > fun in this game that won't happen - stat clamping which according to this community is worse than Hitler
Both issues are on going and the devs have no way to correct these issues. They will continue to exist and hurt the game. Best thing I can you is form your own groups, but we all know that is unlikely unless the content is 3 months old or less.
A kick system where the someone would initiate the vote to kick because of role. The said person would get an in game message that they are about to be kicked if they don't switch roles within?10 seconds? Repeated votes against someone that keeps switching back will be automatically booted. This kick is separate from our kick system now and only works if u have the roles optional off.
Sorry. Only read this far because walls of text hurt my eyes. I would be ok with an optional customization of instances so I could solo queue for content that I can quite simply do on my own. That way, no one has to deal with me "ruining" their experience (to be quite honest, no one has ever told me I was doing so) and I get accomplished what I went in for.
