The CPM is very vocally split on this topic. I think it is one of the simplest way to alleviate pubstomping but I do understand that 4 is limiting when you have an active corp and want to play with your friends. I am looking at whether we can have 4 man squads for public and keep 6 or even 8 for FW.

Hell no.

I should not have to pick and choose my friends to play with because you dont have any.

What about public matches that are divided by security space?

1.0 - 0.5 security space will only allow 4 player squads
0.4 - null security space will allow you to have the standard 6 player squad.

Make contracts in low-sec & null sec space give you more payout and salvage to appeal to players that want to play to win and not pub around. This will somewhat help separate the casual player that doesn't care all too much about winning and the Hardcore player that wants to win.

However, there will still be K/D padders, especially guys from my alliance.

If groups of +4 only have PC and FW to play in, then we have essentially confined larger groups to skirmish type matches, exclusively. BLEH!!!

This produces a horrible dilemma for some players--you can either party with a large group of your buddies but play only one match type all of the time, or you can play your favorite non-skirm match type (dom in my case) but do so with just three other mercs. In my opinion, it's a less than ideal solution

Well, that was an exceptionally aggro response. LOL

I care about this game as much as anyone and I recognize the problems that it faces. However, we need careful solutions that do more than just shift heartaches from one portion of the community to another. I'm certain that such a solution can be found here, but at this juncture I'm simply expressing some of the problems I see with an overly simplistic change that bars squads of a certain size from competing in pubs. I realize that it's a popular idea supported by many people in this thread, but it comes with sacrifices that deserve consideration. I don't think I'm being unfair by saying so.

* Better fights:

Outright bullshit. Never in my time playing dust have i said, 'you know, if i only had two less friends then this match would run better." In fact its the opposite, smaller squads mean more reliance on people you don't know and can't communicate with, the smaller squad i run with the worse the matches become. Carrying 16 people with a 6 man squad > carrying 14 people witha 4 man squad

I think we can solve this whole issue by allowing battleforces to queue into pub matches provided that they can only launch against another battleforce. Teams could coordinate their queues accordingly in channels thus making the situation fairly efficient. This also allows large groupings of players to enjoy all of the match types afforded to everyone else without adding other match types to FW.

It might also be worth considering an option in settings that allows players to check whether or not they would be willing to act as auxiliary members of a battleforce that they are themselves not a part of. There are some solo players who would find this appealing and it would also help battleforces fill the gaps when they don't have exactly 16 players.

Oh and by the way i run a FW squad and we need to do pubs often to keep doing FW, my isk wallet isn't set to unlimited, I'm not screwing friend 5 and 6 on our isk grinds so this would be a deal breaker on the game for me

Hello,
FW is for squads, q sinc's, and more. Basely it's an PC, but not for your corp.....

There should be a potential cost to being anti-social in FW and a potential benefit for those who form ties and make allies. There is no net gain in the meta of FW if the advantage of being on an organized team is always cancelled out against another perfectly matched opponent. If we ever find a way to make the faction experience similar to the corp/alliance experience, then people could more easily find each other and interact with their factional allies thereby naturally promoting organized team play over soloing. In my opinion, FW needs to be something totally unique and entirely meta-driven, but pub-style matchmaking balance jeopardizes that vision.

By the way, if you disagree with that sentiment, be kind enough to express your dissent without resorting to insults, innuendos, or other remarks that serve only to attack me for who I am or what corp I belong to. There's really no need for that kind of discourse. Thanks.

Its extremley frustrating seeing a good chunk of what makes dust fun is being tossed out for no good reason at all. Certainly not for matchmaking.


Are the Devs trying to convince people to run PC? Sure Pc is being reworked right now, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Its still the least popular game mode, any tradeoff that affects every player of Dust for a fringe minority is bad one.


FW? Why do i want to run a game mode exactly the same as a pub skirmish that doesn't pay in Isk. Last time i checked there are no Assault Dropships in the loyalty store.


Dust 514 is still a lobby shooter. Login, squad with friends, pick a game mode, play some matches, log off.
To keep the same social/cooperative level we have now, either wait 24hrs, accomadate each person's racial faction, or que sync two squads. people are complaining one squad of 6 is killing the game, yet want to encourage two squads of eight....

Its one of the worst ideas I have ever seen. For the devs to think its a good one, well its disheartening, shows a true lack of understanding of anything to do with Dust. Which is players enjoy the company of other players, teamwork and what that brings to table. Theres no story mode here, there is no PvE, its literaaly just the experinces that the players make together. So why wound it?

You ought to get Reading comprehension up to at least level 3. Sir man boy has alread accepted 4 man squad only for pubs.

I think we can solve this whole issue by allowing battleforces to queue into pub matches provided that they can only launch against another battleforce. Teams could coordinate their queues accordingly in channels thus making the situation fairly efficient. This also allows large groupings of players to enjoy all of the match types afforded to everyone else without adding other match types to FW.

It might also be worth considering an option in settings that allows players to check whether or not they would be willing to act as auxiliary members of a battleforce that they are themselves not a part of. There are some solo players who would find this appealing and it would also help battleforces fill the gaps when they don't have exactly 16 players.

You guys have me close to sold on 4-man squads in pubs provided that we find a solution that allows larger groups to enjoy the same match variety as everyone else, but if we're going down the road of making pubs more friendly to solo players, new players, etc., then I see no reason to go out of the way to protect people in FW.

Its not a comprimise at all, we can already seperate new players from vets via the academy by a standard metric, toal WP earned. Why not stagger that metric? Seperate players by every 100,000 warpoints, then you give everybody somewhere to go, and keep the vets with the vets, causuals with the casuals, and noobs with the noobs.

Instead, we will continue to throw new players to wolves straight out of the academy, and trading my friends because scoty's incompetence is a no- go.

Entitlement would infer I have acess to something which nobody else does. Everybody from zero SP and up has the ability to form squads, to find other people in the squad finder, and to join open squads. A lot of corp recruitment is done via squadfinder. My ability to use the same tools equally open to every one in the game from the academy on up is not restrictive.

Friendships are built in game by running with players in a squad. I log into dust to squad up with my friends, or i squad up to make new ones, I don't as you put it " skype each other, you can text and call eachother, email each other, send chainmail to each other " or do everything but play Dust 514 with them when I log on to play Dust

Or teach people to squad up/auto squad them and have voice active by default.
Why relegate pub matches to nothing more than a casual environment? Not everyone likes FW, and this idea stops people from playing with people they know just because matchmaking is crap. Fix matchmaking or add meta level matches. Then we'll see if its squad size that is a problem.