...
A 4 man team is not insurmountable. If you have 4 good solo players against 4 squadded players, there's a realistic chance for the solo players to win. The squadded players have a major advantage, but it's not completely overwhelming.

With 6 man squads, this advantage is increased. This leads to stomps and this is why I believe that reducing squad sizes in pubs is a good change.

With 8 man squads, the advantage of teamwork is massive. 8 co-ordinated players will win a match against 8 unco-ordinated players. They might even be able to manage it with a numerical disadvantage.
If you have 8 man squads in FW, then, you end up with groups potentially having a colossal advantage. There are solo players and maybe smaller groups on that team, but an 8 man squad is a huge thing.

If you have a 16 man group against 16 randoms, the 16 randoms may as well immediately surrender.


Therefore, any system in which you can have a full team against randoms is a failed system. This is why it is incredibly important to implement a team deploy system properly.

But isn't a similar thing true of 8 man squads? A full 8 man squad is such a massive advantage that it nearly assures victory if the enemy is composed of solo players. This queueing system allows for that exact scenario - full half team groups against randoms. This is unbalanced.


Some people say that FW is a hardcore mode and so there shouldn't be any matchmaking whatsoever in it. I don't agree with that, and this is why - if this scenario is possible (and indeed, exceedingly probable) then FW will very quickly devolve into an overwhelming stompfest without good fights for a large number of matches, people will leave, and FW will die (again).

To some extent, this has happened already. Q-syncing groups have been put up against randoms and as a result those randoms have gotten stomped and rapidly sickened of the gamemode, so they stopped playing it. As FW Q-sync groups are both a massive pain to organise logistically and often draw from the pool of those who would otherwise be randoms, this leads to the gamemode as a whole stagnating.



These are the problems associated with large squad groups and a lack of safeguards.

Having said that, let's talk about why it could be a good thing.

If you have a scenario where you have a full 8 man squad vs a full 8 man squad, you end up with a good fight. Indeed, outside of PC these would almost certainly be some of the most furious fights to be had in DUST.

But there's a problem with having 8 man squads. What about the other people on the team? When you have two co-ordinated 8 man groups, the solo players are not effective units. They end up caught between the two competing squads. Again, you may be a very l33t player, but against a full squad using teamwork you can't compete. In effect, the non-squadded players end up as fodder for the squadded players and are comparatively less valuable players.

This is why I support full 16v16 team deploys. Not only is it likely to be an even more engaging match than an 8v8 with fodder, there are no players who sort of get caught in the middle.

There is no environment in the game that allows for casual teamplay. PC is an incredible hassle to play and is limited, and both of these things will remain true even after the revamp. 24 hour queue times and exact scheduling along with absolute requirements for team fielding and costs associated with failed attempts do not make for a casual environment.

I know some people here support instant raiding as a PC mechanic, but I'm strongly against that. I'll probably end up going into detail on that at a later date but not right now because I have a feeling this is going to be long enough anyway and it's midnight atm.

In FW, you don't need to meet exact timers, worry about costs, etc etc. It's a much more casual gamemode.

Allowing FW to be a casual environment for team play fills both a gameplay and social niche in the game - but it would only be a fun environment if certain potential problems are taken into account and safeguards put in place.

I don't think it needs to be debated that having a 16 man team vs randoms is completely unacceptable. If a full team queues for FW, they need to be put up against other full teams.

This is equally true of 8 man squads. Whether or not 16v16 deploy happens, there needs to be a measure to ensure that full squads aren't just put up against randoms and permitted to run roughshod over them.



There are other issues associated with large groups like 16 man shared passive scans and full teams with a single person calling OBs, but I'm not going to go massively into detail on those.

Anyhow my wits are wandering because it's late and I'm pretty sure I've missed a few glaringly obvious things that I'll come back to in the morning and I've trailed off a bit but here's what I want to see:

• Full 16 man team deploys, allowing FW to become a casual teamplay mode
• Safeguards to prevent large groups of players from being put up against disorganised mobs
• Prevention of 16 man shared passive scans because **** off no
• Removal of warbarge strikes from FW so there isn't one guy constantly being fed OBs by 15 people and so people actually bother doing them

something something not enough players something something that I'll talk about in the morning



going to sleep now bye

Happy "**** you King George" day you yanks.

Happy "**** you King George" day you yanks.

I played quite a bit last night and have some thoughts to share on the Hotfix:

- Strafe changes: Some people can't even feel it, some people feel the world has ended. This should hint to something. Personally I can't feel any difference in my own movement. I'm VERY happy with people being less jittery.

- Stamina changes: Minmatar Scout will be just fine in this environment.
Jumping is not % based, I am almost certain if you stack green jar you will have moar jumps to use. This hotfix is a buff to green jar utility, and I consider that a big boon to the game !!

- I am overall satisfied with the patch. I kinda want to see backpeddle take another 5% speed hit and go from 85% to 80%.

- I don't think scouts need any adjustments to improve them other than:
FIXING THE GLITCH THAT CANCELS EQUIPMENT CHANGE WHEN SPRINTING.
It's the quality of life change that is most sorely needed.

Pretty sure your spotting is audible to enemy.

I too shoot a lot of blues due to recognition failure. I often die too because I take too long to figure out whose side they're on. I kinda like the voiceover when you're about to lose or win. I guess if those are my thoughts then the gameplay sucks lol.

This all seems pretty reasonable as well. Might end disagreeing with you on Raid Mechanics, but won't know until you share your opinion. As it relates to Team Deploy in FW, are you concerned at all about kinks in queuing dynamics, inadequate matchmaking / low battle quality, or readily organized farming?

Definitely concerned about matchmaking.

It could make or break the entire system.


What do you mean by 'kinks in queuing dynamics'?


As for readily organised farming, I'm not really too worried. You can effectively do it already - but people don't want to do it because it means that half the participants get basically nothing for their time. There's actually an incentive to win in FW, which does a fair bit for helping to prevent that.

I was actually going to try and get the event done yesterday but I spent the whole day throwing up instead. :<

Arkena, do you, per chance, have a degree in math? You're using group theory for part of this...

Also, as a note, algebra is not what is necessarily contained here... abstract, albeit, so the "real" algebra, but you need more robust calculations than simple x + y to describe matchmaking mathematically.

I would say the calculations are correct, but I am not sure on your foundation here... sorry, I am just having a hard time reading through it all. Specifically, the proof section, I don't think, is needed, as it can be assumed that all sets in the group would fit under basic group theory logic. I would say you would need two things too argue the points successfully:

Statistical analysis on average squad size
Statistical analysis on average sync size vs racial factions

From the above, you can then do a group calculation looking for specific sizing parameters of group vs squads going in, and statistical probability of said groups making.

I think, as proposed in Adipem's linked conversation, this can be boiled down into easy "lego sized" blocks, with simple groups of 4, 8, 12, and 16 member deploy allowed for FW only... this will give the highest statistical probability of matchmaking as all outcomes lead to a full match, with each block pushing to the whole group.

I will spend more time looking over your math, as it just seems... clunky... to me, but it has been a little bit (say, 7 years), since I had to analyze something similar to this. Most of the math in my current field is rather straight forward, in comparison.

ETA: will also need coffee... lots of coffee for this. On a side note, if you are/were a math major, is it just my experience, or did everyone going for that degree with you, smoke heavily? After a while, I was able to identify what science field someone was going into merely by how they acted... or in the case of a math student, how much they smoked vs how much they actually wrote stuff.

what are you smoking? o.O

and whats this about lego... i like lego....

That isn't my maths, that's Leither's.

He's a wizard.

about the lego solution thingo.... I think I found a slight issue with the squads..... A 16man squad with 1 or 2 people who arent on meds and have adhd or just a 16man squad is pretty crazy..... it will go down kinda wacky...

Also scotty will cry seeing all this math...

Happy 'murica day.