.... and I can deal with the lack of content as it relates to needing more suits, vehicles, and weapons. The expansion of game modes is a must but I can still have fun in the current ones. That is when they are balanced.

I have over 27 mil SP, plenty of ISK to run whatever I want without worrying about going broke, but it's hard to ever get into the right mindset. I play plenty of PC, so I have that as my serious game mode, and I know I'll use my best gear when running it. What is appropriate for pubs?

If I try to make a habit of remaining profitable, I have plenty of cheap fits that are pretty effective. With all passive skill bonuses I can easily wipe the floor with people wearing advanced and standard fits. In my mind I think it's reasonable to run like this most of the time, and then a squad spawns into the match against me in Proto. I can afford to wear mine to stay competitive with them, but then I'm practically invincible to the rest of the enemy team wearing militia. This to me is not fun and the imbalance of gear is only exasperated by the fact that the wearers also have high passive skills.

Pub matches become a dice role and it stops becoming fun when you can't choose between a serious or more casual setting. Without the ability to team deploy playing serious in pubs is entirely dependent on the rest of you team. If you want to play casually you run the risk of getting interrupted by a try hard squad, so your options are to get serious(and hope your team does too) or expect to die a lot and ruin the casual vibe. This can't be fixed by matchmaking because sometimes I want a hard proto fight, and sometimes I just want to run in BPO suits and screw around, but I don't get to choose. I was hoping Fac War would separate the more serious and casual players but it's just as unpredictable.

Where am I going with this? I know it's a tough universe but it's also a game and some of us don't want pubs to turn into a second job. Any ideas on how we can remedy this even with the low player count?

Knowing CCP and matchmaking, team deploy will just end up being the Randoms vs Full Proto team matches.

Knowing CCP and matchmaking, team deploy will just end up being the Randoms vs Full Proto team matches.

.... and I can deal with the lack of content as it relates to needing more suits, vehicles, and weapons. The expansion of game modes is a must but I can still have fun in the current ones. That is when they are balanced.

I have over 27 mil SP, plenty of ISK to run whatever I want without worrying about going broke, but it's hard to ever get into the right mindset. I play plenty of PC, so I have that as my serious game mode, and I know I'll use my best gear when running it. What is appropriate for pubs?

If I try to make a habit of remaining profitable, I have plenty of cheap fits that are pretty effective. With all passive skill bonuses I can easily wipe the floor with people wearing advanced and standard fits. In my mind I think it's reasonable to run like this most of the time, and then a squad spawns into the match against me in Proto. I can afford to wear mine to stay competitive with them, but then I'm practically invincible to the rest of the enemy team wearing militia. This to me is not fun and the imbalance of gear is only exasperated by the fact that the wearers also have high passive skills.

Pub matches become a dice role and it stops becoming fun when you can't choose between a serious or more casual setting. Without the ability to team deploy playing serious in pubs is entirely dependent on the rest of you team. If you want to play casually you run the risk of getting interrupted by a try hard squad, so your options are to get serious(and hope your team does too) or expect to die a lot and ruin the casual vibe. This can't be fixed by matchmaking because sometimes I want a hard proto fight, and sometimes I just want to run in BPO suits and screw around, but I don't get to choose. I was hoping Fac War would separate the more serious and casual players but it's just as unpredictable.

Where am I going with this? I know it's a tough universe but it's also a game and some of us don't want pubs to turn into a second job. Any ideas on how we can remedy this even with the low player count?

This is what I was thinking. I need to update it but the meta numbers work if you think about it.

There would be instant random battles like the ones we have now. I propose five different sec stat battles, the instant randoms and a forever battle and that doesn't include FW or PC. If a sec stat 0.5 can't find enough players the switch to lower meta gear and go to a 0.6. No more protostomps and the merc will feel more like they won/lost to skill or fitting instead of to straight superior gear.

I"ll link that on this thread. I like your idea as well, why not both?