We all know it's a rampant problem, and it's easy to blame it on one thing or another. But I think that the real reason why we see so many unbalanced instant battles is not any particular one, but a combination of many factors. After listing all the various issues at play, I am now actually more surprised whenever I see an actually balanced game.
The point of this thread is not to QQ, but what I would like to convey is that rather than requiring radical change and blood magic, just going through all of these issues and making a minor tweak to each could improve the situation immensely already.
We already know that CCP is working on match making, and solutions to AFKers as well as something related to redlining. Maybe these improvements will be extensive enough to cover most of the points I am going to mention, but if not, then maybe this still provides some food for thought.
So, without further ado, here's the list:
- Unbalanced number of squads. We all know how much squads benefit from teamplay and communication, so whenever it's one squad vs. no squad, or two squads vs. one squad, things start to become unbalanced.
- Squads unbalancing the number of experienced players. 16 random players will by average have a balanced distribution of experienced and new players. But a single squad of experienced or new players dramatically shifts the balance one way or another.
- Experience is exponentially rewarded. Not just do experienced players benefit from their experience, but also from higher SP and (usually) better gear. This makes the previous issue a lot more significant.
- Successful squads are rewarded with orbital strikes. Because pub stompers really need a WMD to help them out.
- A random team has a higher statistical chance to have a larger number of AFKers on the team, because people rarely squad up to go AFK... So essentially most of the time there is a squad imbalance, there is also an active player count imbalance.
- The ISK factor. How many times have we heard somebody moan about being pub stomped, only to be told to just wear some inexpensive gear to avoid losses? It's sound advise and frequently followed, but it also dramatically escalates any imbalance. The winning team is much more likely to field proto gear and expensive tanks, if risk of losses is reduced.
- No suitable alternative for expert players and squads / corporations to grind or practice team tactics, so they are forced to take it to the pubs where they are wreaking havoc...
- No incentive for winning, so it's smarter to stay low and reduce losses than to make a desperate attempt at an objective, which at least in some cases could have a positive ripple effect on the entire team.
- The relatively low player count is also a factor of course, since it increases the chance to be matched up with seasoned squads rather than random newbies.
There you have it. I could even be missing a few, but I think that's a pretty convincing list already. All in all it just seems that the issue of pub stomping hasn't been a primary consideration in the overall game design, and I believe that there is a lot of low hanging fruit which could make a big difference without requiring huge changes or rocket science algorithms.