Parties vs. PUGs

[Paragon Fury]

Warning: Is a little ranty.

Spoiler

PARAGON FURY ANGRY! PARAGON FURY JUST WANT TO PLAY BALANCED GAMES! RAAAAARGH!

Okay, I really want to know when and why it became alright for the absolute insanity of Pubs vs. Parties started being okay and accepted as the norm and something that developers don't even bother trying to address it anymore, or even encourage. I just spent 3 hours playing Advanced Warfare across multiple gametypes - CTF, Domination, Hardpoint and Kill Confirmed. I think a total of *3 games* didn't have a party team completely curbstomping a pub team.

Maybe its just my old, addled age catching up to me, but I remember even in the recent past that the kind of behavior that I see literally every day I play any non-single player game (or 1v1 game like SCII or DoA) was *not accepted*. It was considered extremely bad manners to party stack unless there was another party of players on the other team, and if you tried it people would abandon your server in droves and blacklist it. In games with matchmaking, developers (like Bungie) were *super strict* about parties being sure to play other parties. If you went in as a team of 4, you were damned sure to get a party of 4 or 3+1 on the other team. It was only after like 5-7 minutes of searching that matchmaking in games of old would consider a Pub vs. Party match acceptable.

But now? Its the Wild West out there, and roving gangs of party teams are free to prey on whomever they please with no repercussions and no protections for people playing alone (Heck, it got so bad in Heroes that is one of the reasons I stopped playing that game). In my mind I feel like the turning point for this came about right around the release of Modern Warfare 2; thats the point in my mind where I see the real big, sudden increase in acceptance and occurrence of this.

*But if you don't like it, you should play with a party yourself!*

I'm sorry, but this is a cop-out answer. I remember that not 7 years ago, I could just come home, sit down and play basically any game of my choosing and not have to worry about getting reamed by a party team. Be it Battlefield 2142, Halo 2/3, Counter-Strike, Unreal etc. It was perfectly acceptable and even expected that the vast majority of people playing alone; now apparently we don't even merit a 'No Parties" filter in matchmaking.

Further "playing with people" doesn't really solve the problem - it just makes me the perpetrator of it. Also, why should MY ability to play a game be determined by the winds of fate for having people online to play the game I want to play at that moment? Why I should I have to drag up to 4/5 other people with me just to have enjoyable games in gametypes I like? I'm not going to make people who want to play Search & Destroy and Team Slayer play CTF or Uplink with me; and I'm certainly not going to make them listen to me be miserable playing S&D or TS.

I'd just like to sit down, put in my game of choice without having to worry about having to sit there getting stomped by the [BONG] and [DRGN] teams for 3 hours, like I used to be able to.

 

[DoPo]

I'm sorry, but this is a cop-out answer. I remember that not 7 years ago, I could just come home, sit down and play basically any game of my choosing and not have to worry about getting reamed by a party team. Be it Battlefield 2142, Halo 2/3, Counter-Strike, Unreal etc. It was perfectly acceptable and even expected that the vast majority of people playing alone;

I'm sorry, what? I've no clue where you've been playing but around the time I played CS it wasn't really that big of a deal if a party went in a server. Sure, it wasn't really a regular occurrence, to be honest, but loads of people were at least playing with one other, if not more. In fact, it was quite common for about 3-5 people to play together, even if they weren't really doing it team based. Heck, even a fair assumption would be that there would be two playing together on opposite teams, so when one dies, the other one gives out the positions of the enemies to them (hence where fade to black became a thing).

I even have a slightly amusing story here: I've even done this myself - me and my team went in a pub server (not a lot of private ones were about) and joined in. Due to lacking enough slots, we had to join both teams. It was also the first time we played after creating the team so we devised a plan - we hadn't included our clan tags yet, so we waited until the only surviving players (on both sides) were from our team. When that round finally came, both the terrorists and counter terrorists went together (it was the B bomb site in de_dust) and...started playing hopscotch. And playing ball with the bomb and generally being buddies in-game. Until the round was up, of course. Next round comes, and now every one now had the clan tag in our names (since name changes come into effect on the following round). I still think it was a better introduction to the team than just entering and playing.

Anyway, back to the topic:

Why I should I have to drag up to 4/5 other people with me just to have enjoyable games in gametypes I like?

The problem is that the game is meant for teams. Playing a slightly more complicated free for all in a team game is doable but you have to admit, that it's not as effective. I mean, that's where your topic comes from, doesn't it? Playing free for all is why I stopped playing CS. I think it's a beautiful game, yet one destroyed by the community mindset of "Let's basically play Quake here". I've been chastised a lot over my decision to play...well, Counter-Strike, as opposed to Quake. If I use walk and listen for footsteps, I've been called a hacker; if I go and plant the bomb, I've been verbally abused; if I have 10 HP left and no ammo and decide to wait out the round in order to win (cs_* maps, as a terrorist, for example), I've been called horrible names; if I rescue the hostages because the terrorists left are camping who knows where, I've been targeted for harassment; and so on. And here is the thing - this is how the game works. I firmly believe I'm nor wrong for using the game mechanics and rules as intended. I am convinced that everybody who consciously decide to limit themselves, shouldn't complain about those limits. And a lot of people do actually limit themselves.

The real thing that finally made me quit, however, is the ironic trap that the community was in. It emphasized being a good lone shooter over, you know, playing as intended but it then turned around and attacked anybody who was acting as the ideal but was good. I'll admit, I am not really good at FPS-es. I'm OK, I guess, not great at all. Hence why I'd leverage the situation by using other non-shooting mechanics, like sound or, what sometimes seems like the bane of some people, thought. But I know people. I know people who are really good. I'm talking scoring a headshot with the first shot, in the same second as an enemy is spotted and all while in the air jumping down a ledge. And while that's certainly not easy to pull off, they can do it ~80% of the time. So, what I mean to explain here is that they do really well with the shooting aspect. They also get frequently kicked or even banned from public servers for cheating. It's not really only them, either - these are just people I know IRL, I know it happens to others. I've seen it happen to others.

So, while the seemingly ideal for a CS player (amongst the pub games) is a guy who is not unlike a cowboy from a western, in practice the ones who are that ideal are shunned. It's like the actual game promoted is one of mediocrity and self-imposed limitations that bring you even lower. That's why I stopped playing CS back in the day.

So, I think the real solution here is...to not actually have games with conflicting goals. If the community wants a Quake successor, that's fine, however, then the game shouldn't be something that's not that. If the games want to promote teamplay, then they should put more effort into doing it, so they don't have to balance around teams that aren't really teams.

 

[Albino Boo]

Choppity chop

The problem for all objective based modes is that you can't force people to play the objective. Any team in a pub server in made up between those playing the objective and those playing for themselves. Even in games like RO2 where being in the cap makes huge difference to the points added per kill you still get a huge number of people camping with rifles way out of the objective. Fundamentally, if you play a team based game in real life there is social pressure to play as a team but in pubs there is no consequence to camping and ignoring the objective. The only change that I think could make a difference would be to base leaderboards and unlocks on win/loss ratios and not record KpD

 

[DoPo]

Choppity chop

The problem for all objective based modes is that you can't force people to play the objective. Any team in a pub server in made up between those playing the objective and those playing for themselves.

While true, I think effort can be made. Killing Floor is merciless on the team aspect - wander off to be Rambo on your own and everybody would die. Do it again and everybody would die. Chances are that should teach you you can't go off by yourself. Healing is more effective if administered on other players and medics can't really operate on their own.

That's one example. DotA, on the other hand, is balanced around team play and even though you could play so well on your own, that your team wins the game, most of the times a well organised team of individually OK players will play better than somebody with a great micro but no teamplay. Teamplay is so ingrained in everything that one side could lose because of one of them trying to be "teh 1337".

Now, I am fully aware it's not easy to emphasize on objectives as opposed to just murdering everybody, however, that's not the same as "impossible". It simply means putting some more effort into it. Award very few points for kills but a lot for objectives, or have game abilities rely on your team, or otherwise make the non-kill-everybody mechanics more prominent. How this is done will depend a lot on the exact nature of the game and may require tailoring to exactly your game, as opposed to having some generic silver bullet solution to drop in. So, again, it's effort that's needed. But then you won't end up in the situation like me or OP and many others have experienced.

I also thing this could help out in making the games better due to the additional design that would go with them. As opposed to having yet another which tries to be a bit of everything.

 

[Albino Boo]

While true, I think effort can be made. Killing Floor is merciless on the team aspect - wander off to be Rambo on your own and everybody would die. Do it again and everybody would die. Chances are that should teach you you can't go off by yourself. Healing is more effective if administered on other players and medics can't really operate on their own.

That's one example. DotA, on the other hand, is balanced around team play and even though you could play so well on your own, that your team wins the game, most of the times a well organised team of individually OK players will play better than somebody with a great micro but no teamplay. Teamplay is so ingrained in everything that one side could lose because of one of them trying to be "teh 1337".

Now, I am fully aware it's not easy to emphasize on objectives as opposed to just murdering everybody, however, that's not the same as "impossible". It simply means putting some more effort into it. Award very few points for kills but a lot for objectives, or have game abilities rely on your team, or otherwise make the non-kill-everybody mechanics more prominent. How this is done will depend a lot on the exact nature of the game and may require tailoring to exactly your game, as opposed to having some generic silver bullet solution to drop in. So, again, it's effort that's needed. But then you won't end up in the situation like me or OP and many others have experienced.

I also thing this could help out in making the games better due to the additional design that would go with them. As opposed to having yet another which tries to be a bit of everything.

The zombies in killing floor always play the objective, the AI makes them play it. In a pvp game no one forces the other team to play the objective so you dont get as punsihed as often.

I have 2180 hours in TF2. A game which has balanced classes with different jobs yet the number of times you have a team with 3 spies and 3 snipers and no medics because you cant force someone to play a medic. I once went 12 rounds on Dustbowl fighting a team made up of 6 snipers. In all 12 rounds they kept dying to the same ubered pyros. They never learnt because they only thought about what they wanted and had no interest in changing. No matter what you do when you give some people a choice they will not make the choice that is best for the team but do what they want to do. In all I have about 3500 hours of fps pvp gameplay and similar patterns occur in pub servers. The side that wins is the one that has the least number of people not playing the objective. The reason why the party kept winning in the OP's case is because they had one team that a higher than average count of people playing the objective.

 

[Paragon Fury]

I mean...another day today. 3 hours of Halo and some CoD...and nothing but party teams on the opposite team. 3 hours, and not a single win because of party teams.

I actually watched Advanced Warfare make a proper match - a team 3 on one side +3 PUBs, and a team of 3 + 3 PUBs on the other side; and the it swapped the teams and made it a team of 3+3 vs. 6 PUBs.

This is the main reason why my multiplayer is almost exclusively League or nonexistent; because getting balanced teams just doesn't happen anymore. Developers don't seem to give a damn, and server hosts most definitely don't.

 

[josemlopes]

I dont know, I do play with a party (okay, its just one other guy) and yet when I play alone in games that he doesnt have I usually do allright, even in games like Red Orchestra 2 that demand teamwork.

 

[RJ 17]

Granted, it's been a long time since I've played a team-based shooter, but as I recall the match-making mechanics to indeed try to balance out the formed teams vs random teams. As I recall, if a 6 man team couldn't be paired with a suitable matching against another 6 man team, it at least tries to put them against teams totaling of 6 people in parties (i.e. two sets of 3, a pair of buddies and a team of 4, etc).

Quite simply the math break-downs just don't work so that EVERY 6 man team will ONLY face another 6 man team.

I do feel your pain, though. That's actually one of the reasons I stopped playing games like CoD and Halo...but from the other end: I personally just refuse to play an online shooter unless I've got a full team to roll with. And as you pointed out, it doesn't always work out that way because some people have these things called "lives" and can't afford to spend 12 hours on CoD with their mates.

I got sick and tired of playing with random players so I came up with a joke motto: "If a green arrow is behind you, you're about to be shot in the back." "Green Arrow" refers to the fact that back in the older CoD's, random teammates not in your party appeared as green arrows on the minimap. The sad thing is once I actually started playing in accordance to this joke motto and checking my back every time I noticed a green arrow behind me...my performance in the game actually improved. >.>

So that's the other part of the equation here: apparently a good 80% of the random jackasses you'll encounter on CoD are below average - to put it nicely - in terms of skill.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

It's the fault of developers for not having a level system or game rooms, the game just doesn't have the ability make even teams outside of sheer luck. I played MGO for 4 years straight because I could join a high level room literally any time of day and only play against good players. A simple level system, not based on EXP but skill would create even teams as well. MGO's level system worked like this: play well against players of your level or higher, you level up; you play poorly against players of your level or lower, you level down. Playing well or poorly was determined by your place on the scoreboard (in points, not kills) at the end of the match, play for kills and you're going to level down. It is genius in its simplicity. The level system was really accurate. A clan of say level 16 players vs a clan of level 15 players would win probably 90% of the time (at least 75%).

I can't blame others for wanting to play with their friends/clanmates especially when randoms are so terrible, I don't want to play with people not trying to win (I really don't care how good you are as long as you try to win). It's not their fault they are getting matched up with randoms and curb stomping them. I know when I play in parties, we want to get matched up against a good team/party. We back out after a match if we dominate the other team and look for a better lobby.

So that's the other part of the equation here: apparently a good 80% of the random jackasses you'll encounter on CoD are below average - to put it nicely - in terms of skill.

I'd say at least 90% of people either don't know how to or don't want to play the objective. For example, the standard COD Domination mode whereas there's 3 capture points (one outside of each team's spawn and one in the middle; the strategy to win is really really simple), at least 90% of players run to the closest capture point instead of running to the middle capture point to get that and get map control, thus they have lost the game in the 1st 10 seconds of the match by LETTING the other team have the middle capture point and map control. It's a combination of people not knowing how to play (like people defend objectives by camping them instead of pushing up past them to keep the other team as far away from the objective as possible) or people just not wanting to play the objective.

 

[sandangel]

Pugs are adorable.

That's all I can think of.

 

[RJ 17]

So that's the other part of the equation here: apparently a good 80% of the random jackasses you'll encounter on CoD are below average - to put it nicely - in terms of skill.

I'd say at least 90% of people either don't know how to or don't want to play the objective. For example, the standard COD Domination mode whereas there's 3 capture points (one outside of each team's spawn and one in the middle; the strategy to win is really really simple), at least 90% of players run to the closest capture point instead of running to the middle capture point to get that and get map control, thus they have lost the game in the 1st 10 seconds of the match by LETTING the other team have the middle capture point and map control. It's a combination of people not knowing how to play (like people defend objectives by camping them instead of pushing up past them to keep the other team as far away from the objective as possible) or people just not wanting to play the objective.

Headquarters was another game-type that always had teams full of people refusing to go for the objectives. The only reason they're playing it is because there's no maximum kill limit to the game, as the game doesn't end until one team has reached the necessary point total by holding the Headquarters points for long enough. As such they just run around, treating the game as though it's a standard TDM and driving me absolutely insane by their refusal to try and help with the actual point of the game mode.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Headquarters was another game-type that always had teams full of people refusing to go for the objectives. The only reason they're playing it is because there's no maximum kill limit to the game, as the game doesn't end until one team has reached the necessary point total by holding the Headquarters points for long enough. As such they just run around, treating the game as though it's a standard TDM and driving me absolutely insane by their refusal to try and help with the actual point of the game mode.

That's another reason game rooms are great. On MGO, people would play this one objective mode unranked just to warm-up or screw around but the room would be labeled as such.

 

[DeadProxy]

Thats a whole lot to read on my break, so I'm just gonna say that I hate being thrown into matches in shooters with clans or groups of mics, or similar names across the lobby. I leave any and every one I can because I know im not in for a fun time.

I almost never play shooters any more because it just got so common for me to be on the receiving end of that curb stomping, and NEVER on the side with people using mics. Years of shooters ,and ive never been lucky enough.

And I'm in the shitty minority who will never have the option of parties because I hate using a mic and have no friends to team up with anyway.