How can they allow that!
I sat for an hour today trying to have a go before enough people stuck out the waiting time long enough to have a match. If all you good people play in private games, then there will be even more hours spent just looking at a very dull screen with a spinning thing on it.
Sounds like a good idea once you get a critical mass of players but the way Arena is right now, I have no idea where that critical mass might come from (except possibly 2.1 rage quitters
)
I sat for an hour today trying to have a go before enough people stuck out the waiting time long enough to have a match. If all you good people play in private games, then there will be even more hours spent just looking at a very dull screen with a spinning thing on it.
Sounds like a good idea once you get a critical mass of players but the way Arena is right now, I have no idea where that critical mass might come from (except possibly 2.1 rage quitters
)
How can they allow that!
I sat for an hour today trying to have a go before enough people stuck out the waiting time long enough to have a match. If all you good people play in private games, then there will be even more hours spent just looking at a very dull screen with a spinning thing on it.
Sounds like a good idea once you get a critical mass of players but the way Arena is right now, I have no idea where that critical mass might come from (except possibly 2.1 rage quitters
I think you've got it exactly backwards.
If you have a solid population of players, you don't need private matchmaking in order to find a game. There's enough people that the game can stick you with players of your own level any time of day, everyone is happy. (Except for people trying to organize specific matches or tournaments, at least).
If there aren't enough players to sustain that, which is the case right now, private matchmaking means that people can more easily plan and schedule games rather than just being at the mercy of the matchmaker and the current population level. And they can be sure they won't be stuck clubbing seals / being clubbed by OP vets because populations aren't high enough to keep noobs and vets separate.
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I assumed that the motivation for private groups was for playing with friends rather than a match making strategy. However, as a seal myself, I can at least sometimes get a game even if it is mostly with seal clubbers. If the clubbers where off elsewhere, then I would presume nobody plays the game and go back to exploring the galaxy.
I do get that the experienced players probably want to avoid us seals but the only way to grow the game is to have people (or NPC's) available for the newbies.
It's kind of a catch-22, I'd love for CQC to be more successful and I have a lot of fun playing it. But it reminds me a lot of Shadowrun for Xbox 360 a few years ago. The population went through a sharp decline for various reasons (steep learning curve for one), so we ended up with a small public game community. Almost all of the dedicated players ended up playing in private matches (probably 100 players or so actively playing scrims and informal tournaments) with a few "pub-lords" often seen in matchmade games and bots filling in the rest. What ended up happening is that new players would come, get stomped by the pub-lords and never know there was this rich private game community, so the private game community slowly died because there was never any fresh blood and people inevitably move on, the public game community could never get it's feet under it because there were no mentors and the learning curve was steep. It was IMO the best shooter of all time but it just couldn't make it.
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I don't know that there is a solution to it, without new blood it will slowly decline. The best medium I could think of is being able to publicly list your private matches (with player lists and stats viewable) and allow join requests. For the private group it means the session doesn't have to end when someone leaves because you can grab someone from matchmaking (seeing their rank and stats before sending the invite), for people in matchmaking it signals that people are playing which communicates a living community and encourages participation. Definitely not a solution, but maybe a salve.
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Also, allowing us to search for a match from the main game could be incredibly helpful.
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To be honest I think just a few NPC's would help, even stupid ones. I was staring at two other commanders while we waited endlessly for a fourth person to join (who never did). Throw in a dumb NPC and we could still at least have played. Hell, forget the NPC's, even two players can have a game if there is nobody else to join but we have to wait for four or more.
I agree, the new AI in the main game translated to CQC could be quite competitive. Better than having people sit in a lobby doing nothing. You could even have 2 options for matchmaking: one with bots filling in, the other with only human players for people that prefer that. Though again, dividing a small community isn't always the best option.
Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
*Mod hat off
I usually do not have much issues to get into games tbh, 30 sec to 1 minute waiting time max (Team Death Match).
But I think private games would be great not only to play with friends in a more coordinated manner, privately when you feel like it (asume that would be outside ranking etc), but also to organize and create tournaments run by the community in a controlled environment too.
I usually do not have much issues to get into games tbh, 30 sec to 1 minute waiting time max (Team Death Match).
But I think private games would be great not only to play with friends in a more coordinated manner, privately when you feel like it (asume that would be outside ranking etc), but also to organize and create tournaments run by the community in a controlled environment too.
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I wish FD had simply gone with a normal lobby setup for CQC from the start. They could have left auto-matchmaking an option for those looking to rank up, but the lack of a standard lobby and chat rooms and ability to create your own games seemed to me like a really bad decision.
Well to tackle this issue we took things in our hands. Check this out https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/263556-Roster-for-Team-Deathmatch-Capture-the-Flag (courtesy of SOWELU). Yesterday evening 5-6 players were constantly online for hours, in the end we put together a full CTF game. It is not a league, anyone is welcome to join, just msg us in Discord!
I've been attending weekly meets with the Facebook Elite Dangerous Community in CQC, and for the most part it seems to be us plus the usual forumites there at times. It's great fun.
I do hope the people in charge have something good planned for CQC in 2.2, such as an interface revamp a la the bulletin board missions, and the ability to have private matches. Also, I haven't heard much else about the big cash-prize CQC tournament: has that finished?
It is a very good game so far: playing it a few times, I now feel like I could take on the entire universe myself.
I do hope the people in charge have something good planned for CQC in 2.2, such as an interface revamp a la the bulletin board missions, and the ability to have private matches. Also, I haven't heard much else about the big cash-prize CQC tournament: has that finished?
It is a very good game so far: playing it a few times, I now feel like I could take on the entire universe myself.
I've been attending weekly meets with the Facebook Elite Dangerous Community in CQC, and for the most part it seems to be us plus the usual forumites there at times. It's great fun.
I do hope the people in charge have something good planned for CQC in 2.2, such as an interface revamp a la the bulletin board missions, and the ability to have private matches. Also, I haven't heard much else about the big cash-prize CQC tournament: has that finished?
It is a very good game so far: playing it a few times, I now feel like I could take on the entire universe myself.
You might be right. You killed me about 100 times tonight
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Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
*Mod hat off
Fully agree with you and really hope so. Although there are no news at all on CQC updates, 2.2 or otherwise.
A basic lobby feature allowing players to create their own games including invite mechanics (manually created games should be out of the ranking system) is all we need to basically allow the community to take it from there including community run tourneys etc.
I personally believe that such a private lobby feature will in the end make more players to also try ranked games.
I've been attending weekly meets with the Facebook Elite Dangerous Community in CQC, and for the most part it seems to be us plus the usual forumites there at times. It's great fun.
I do hope the people in charge have something good planned for CQC in 2.2, such as an interface revamp a la the bulletin board missions, and the ability to have private matches. Also, I haven't heard much else about the big cash-prize CQC tournament: has that finished?
It is a very good game so far: playing it a few times, I now feel like I could take on the entire universe myself.
Fully agree with you and really hope so. Although there are no news at all on CQC updates, 2.2 or otherwise.
A basic lobby feature allowing players to create their own games including invite mechanics (manually created games should be out of the ranking system) is all we need to basically allow the community to take it from there including community run tourneys etc.
I personally believe that such a private lobby feature will in the end make more players to also try ranked games.
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Since Frontier introduced CQC a year ago they've simply let it go stagnant. Hopefully they'll introduce a proper lobby and more fighters perhaps with 2.2 Guardians. Even better, some actual rewards and a few maps .
I think that'll draw customers and keep an active playerbase. Then everyone's happy, including Frontier.
I stuck it out for months before and got to 90% champion but have still made less than a Mil. Comparatively we can make 11m per hour trading in an Anaconda (432 tonnes 14ly).
What I'm getting at is there's just nothing to keep people motivated: a few maps, 4 ships, no available matches and no reward for all your perseverance.
Fly safe
.I think that'll draw customers and keep an active playerbase. Then everyone's happy, including Frontier.
I stuck it out for months before and got to 90% champion but have still made less than a Mil. Comparatively we can make 11m per hour trading in an Anaconda (432 tonnes 14ly).
What I'm getting at is there's just nothing to keep people motivated: a few maps, 4 ships, no available matches and no reward for all your perseverance.
Fly safe
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A lot of good ideas here, in this thread and in this subforum. Anybody at Frontier wish to make a comment please?
On this evening's Teamspeak channels for EDC and Black Fleet, we bounced a few ideas about to improve CQC, such as an Assault mode involving Federal and Imperial battle cruisers and squads of fighters, a 2 Forts style CTF map involving Coriolis stations facing each other, King of the Hill modes, and a mini tournament of 3 rounds involving 32 players in total and offering big credit prizes to the winners. Or even unique commodities, data and materials.
Personally, a bigger lobby room with lists of active games and players therein so that we can apply to join games in progress (subject to balancing) and an in-menu chat panel would be a great start.
On this evening's Teamspeak channels for EDC and Black Fleet, we bounced a few ideas about to improve CQC, such as an Assault mode involving Federal and Imperial battle cruisers and squads of fighters, a 2 Forts style CTF map involving Coriolis stations facing each other, King of the Hill modes, and a mini tournament of 3 rounds involving 32 players in total and offering big credit prizes to the winners. Or even unique commodities, data and materials.
Personally, a bigger lobby room with lists of active games and players therein so that we can apply to join games in progress (subject to balancing) and an in-menu chat panel would be a great start.
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