Premades aren't killing CQ, poor play and a lack of leads and lack of progression through CQ is killing CQ. If someone new forms a premade and most of the players leave because they just wiped to a HK lead, it isn't that leader's fault. Its the fact that some players who joined up wanted a free carry to a CQ win and at times they out number players who are there to actually enjoy the content and want to progress though it. Which is laughable, because it is practically impossible to even progress through CQ now when compared to Storm Legion.
CQ used to have far better players, but now that raiders and PvE players have little reasons to play CQ outside of trying to get a heart, the content is generally ignored and thus the playerbase for it has deteriorated considerably, which is why premades are so strong right now. Premades are competent. Premades adapt. Premades maneuver efficiently. Pugs rarely do any of this. Though it isn't really their fault, as there are few ingame guides or incentives to really do anything in CQ outside of weeklies, which are difficult to get when there are few enough players in CQ as it is now.
Part of the problem is that a lack of leads, is causing timer play and fights to lose quality. Though I don't blame people for not stepping up when a majority of /1 CQ chat is extremely toxic towards new leads. This is Trion's fault for not monitoring CQ chat or reacting to complaints/reports from players. Many people join CQ simply to troll player, sabotage their teams and ridicule new leads. As such, there have been very few new leads in CQ.
And on the topic of progression, it just isn't possible in CQ. If I chose to do all of my weeklies and then just do CQ, there is absolutely no way in hell I'd actually meet that Fragment of Horror cap. I'm not asking for CQ to drop relic weapons, I'm asking for it to at least be available way to grind Fragments and obtain raid level gear. Back in Storm Legion CQ and PvP had clear progression and due to a stable grind the PvP community was doing great. With the removal of a clear form of progression, people have lost interest and some have left the game all together. As a result I will be suggesting ways to fix this.
If Trion wants to fix CQ, they need to make quite a few changes (including both what I just talked about and more) to improve gameplay, progression, the PvP community and overall satisfaction for everyone. Thus my suggestions to fixing CQ and PvP as a whole include (along with quotes and suggestions from Bctrainners and Khelendross):
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1. First, have a GM actively moderate CQ chats. These channels are Trion created channels, thus they should be moderated.
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2. Second, Introduce a CQ daily that rewards 150 Fragments and 1200 ABCs that is completable for capturing 20 extractors in CQ. This will help PvPers get closer to meeting the caps on Fragments and ABC since PvP activities give nowhere near as much as raiding. Not to mention, this gives players who don't normally do CQ a reason to be interested again. This quest should be easy to implement since it's just a variant of an the older CQ daily from Storm Legion.
I understand that raiders might not be happy with this idea, but since PvP methods can barely even meet half of the weekly cap, a form of currency income, especially at this point in the expansion where T1 is likely nearing it's end would help already struggling PvP community catch up.
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3. Third, Establish a que system with a standard premade raid setup for pugs for CQ. This will greatly improve CQ blance without removing premades from CQ.
To quote the great Bctrainners:
Quote:
Originally Posted by bctrainers
- Conquest Queuing system.
It's junk, well... i should say its broken, junk, and a joke. When conquest begins, it's pure randomness on where players get set to for a faction. There is no proper queuing when CQ begins. There is no "player composition checking" like there is for 5man LFG's. The system just plops pugs into a raid on a "first come, first serve" design, and nothing more. This has been observed hundreds of times, by numerous players who play conquest a lot more than others. Making the excuse of "oh, just ask people to swap to healing...", is not a solution.
What can be done to resolve this issue for solo joiners?
- Implement a PROPER queuing system for conquest. Allow players to have a LFG checkbox-like area on the conquest UI tab section. Allowing the player to select if they want to tank, dps, heal, and/or support in conquest.
- Delay any conquest joins for up to a minute at/after conquest begins. Allow the player pool to accumulate.
- Let the system determine what they're doing. If they're healing, try to find 4 other healers and plop them into a raid of 13 DPS along with a bard/oracle and a chon/bm from the selection above.
- There wouldn't be no "Ready" / "Cancel" buttons for the conquest queuing system. You simply check what you'd like to be doing. It wouldn't lock you out from swapping roles. the check boxes would behave much like the current LFG system, where if you cannot perform that role, it won't activate.
Can said system be abused? Oh, yeah, it can be - but this check box system is only a "What I'd like to do", and the server will plop you to a faction's pug raid that can use said role. This UI element would only activate for SOLO players, and would not activate for a group of two or more.
Here's a quick and horrible photochop of the idea...
Attachment 21880
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Now, as for Premade Queuing... there's a ton of "if's" here. And I am going as neutral that I can be with this.
As seen with the image above, the check boxes would not exist. It'd still remain as the same 'ole UI that we have currently, as there's more than one person, aka party/raid.
However, premades would also get stuck into the same queuing system that solo players would. Premades would be lopped to a faction where there are no other premades of 9 players within a premade or more.
If a premade joins after the one minute join delay queuing system... they'll be stuck into the queues until an even player match of both factions can be met to their joining X amount. Sure, that'll suck, but that'll deter premades from gaming the system. Worst case scenario, the premade will not be able to join conquest at all.
If there is a premade of 20 on a particular faction already, said faction will be locked out from premades / postmades / whatever until the other two factions gain a premade. This is to prevent raid stacking that myself and every other player has seen in this game.
Source: http://forums.riftgame.com/newreply....eply&p=4994746
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4. Fourth, Make it so CQ doesn't start until each team has a full raid. And don't let a premade enter CQ until there is a full raid opposing it. This is something that should have been implemented a long time ago and wasn't. It should be implemented now.
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5. Fifth, Add a tutorial video that is required for players to watch BEFORE entering their Steppes or Stillmoor CQ for the first time. There is one for the soul tree to introduce players to their souls, there should be one explaining CQ mechanics. This would benefit new players greatly.
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6. Sixth, Establish a CQ channel on each shard or have one global cross-shard channel dedicated to CQ based on Deepwood.
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7. Seventh, Decrease the cost on crafted items in CQ to give crafting a greater impact on CQ gameplay. This has been discussed before and it should continued to be discussed as it's an interesting part of CQ.
Quote from Khelendross on it awhile ago:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Khelendross
Offensive and Defensive weapons:
In addition to increased health and reduced damage taken for all extractors (double for central extractors), using the collected sourcestone for something useful would be great. The buffs are ridiculous and largely a waste of time. Put in real offensive and defensive weapons.
When the match starts for 15 mins there is a NPC that sells the new defensive and offensive stuff for sourcestones OR favor. At 15 minutes this guy disappears and at that point you must buy with sourcestone from a new spawning npc.
A few examples of defensive and offensive items:
Defensive:
Lifespring of Shielding-Blue, generates a shield equal to 50% of the turrets max hp. This stacks up to 4 times. Cost 300 sourcestone or 5k favor
Lifespring of Mitigation-Red, generates a buff that reduces damage taken by 5%. Stacks up to 4 times. 400 sourcestone or 7k favor
Lifespring of Healing-Green, heals the raid in a large aoe around it, has relatively low hp. 200 sourcestone or 3k favor
Offensive:
Turret: Deals AOE damage to human targets, does 25% damage to seige equipment. Has low hp. 200 sourcestone or 3k favor
Anti Seige Turret: Deals aoe damage to seige equipment. deals 25% damage to human targets. Has more hp than the regular turret. 250 sourcestone or 4k favor
Extractor Breaker: Mech equivalent to a seige ram. Deals single target full damage to extractors and seige equipment. High damage, high health, moves very slow. 500 sourcestone or 10k favor
Seige Breaker: Mech designed for anti seige ranged warfare. Does 25% damage to human targets. But has a high damage single target and a moderate damage aoe for seige equipment damage. Does 50% damage to extractors. 600 Sourcestone or 12k favor.
Sourcestone Catapult: Deals true damage to human and seige targets but does not deal damage to extractors. 40m range. Low HP, almost no mobility (10% speed). Catapult has a 10s cooldown. 350 sourcestone or 6k favor.
Source: http://forums.riftgame.com/newreply....eply&p=5008089
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8. Eighth, if these changes are implemented, do more events based around CQ to revive the community for it and get player interested again. The Dev CQ was a blast and I, along with several others would like to see it return.
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9. Ninth, Steppes needs a complete rework. There is simply no other way to put it. Even if CQ group were reduced to 5, there is still a very high chance of one team dominating the match.
My suggestions for Steppes:
Spread the stones out across the entire map instead of the forts.
Have only one fort's extractors active at once for force a large scale team battle and rotate the fights between A and B.
Increase the impact of footholds on team scores.
Bctrainer's thoughts on Steppes:
Quote:
Originally Posted by bctrainers
Implementation of the maps
Designs of both maps are nice, despite stillmoor being antiquated. Steppes had a TON of potential, but it's a mindless pick up stones from A --> Zerg to B and deposit stones, rinse and repeat. Steppes could use some changes in how / when extractor depositors activate/deactivate. The location of items could be changed around in this map.
Source: http://forums.riftgame.com/newreply....eply&p=4994746
Just a few ideas, but Steppes really needs to be looked at.
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10. Another post from Bctrainners which I completely agree with:
Quote:
Originally Posted by bctrainers
Five minute timer.
When the five minute timer activate on either conquest map, the server needs to lock out additional players from joining. This isn't about balance, it's about people who spent their time in conquest and worked for their rewards. People that join into conquest during the five minute timer, on to a winning faction only join to leech a win for their weekly and the looting the "RNG Loot chest box". This needs to be done away with. Right now, people that join at the five minute timer don't even have to work for their rewards at the end. They join in, have a chance at winning, loot the chest if they win and may even score a heart.
I know it's not a popular opinion to many people with said idea and request, but people who just come in for easy wins and such needs to be deterred in this game. Heck, allow them to join but leave them in the queues until conquests five minute timer ends.
Source: http://forums.riftgame.com/newreply....eply&p=4994746
This might be unpopular with several players, but I agree with Bc's views. This is the right thing to do. Several people join at timer only to see if they get the winning team and several of these players will stand at base and afk until timer ends. This needs to stop.
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11. Another quote from Bc which I believe is both a simple and brilliant idea:
Quote:
Originally Posted by bctrainers
Lacking a global duration timer.
Both stillmoor and steppes conquest need a global timer limiter. Limiting both conquest zones to a maximum duration of 45 minutes would be a start. Why? We all have seen both conquests at one point or another become a mindless Player Vs Extractor, premade farming a small swath of pugs, or base camping all too much just to get their weekly kills up. This needs to be put to an end, and a start to fixing / remedying this is by adding the global timer.
Source: http://forums.riftgame.com/newreply....eply&p=4994746
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12. Premade stacking needs to be addressed.
Bctrainer's thought on premade stacking:
Quote:
Originally Posted by bctrainers
Premade Stacking.
As mentioned above, premade stacking happens all far to often due to how the join button randoms people in at the start of a match. I've seen three premades all slapped to the same faction, I've seen two premades, vs 1 premade vs pugs on another occurrence. This list goes on, this is a serious issue that is more or less a high priority to have resolved. When there's two premades, 40 people that are working together, it completely obliterates nearly all of the competition of the two other factions. That's a serious issue. This all comes down to a bad implementation of a player load balancer for conquest. This is a flaw in itself for conquest, hands down one of the major sources of issues.
Source: http://forums.riftgame.com/newreply....eply&p=4994746
As stated, premade stacking is an issue. I personally can verify that my premades have been stacked with Rgi 3 times in the last week alone against two groups of 10 on the other factions. This is why players quit conquest. When you see a group of 40 players to your 10, it is extremely demoralizing.
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13. A few more thoughts on CQ from Bctrainners:
Quote:
Originally Posted by bctrainers
[B]Implementation of the maps
In stillmoor, alternative modes of stillmoor could be activated. For example, relocate all of the extractors to different areas in the same scenes. The Caer Mathos extractor could be moved to Greenscales Blight area, the HC extractor could be moved further eastward into the buildings area. The Briarcliff woods extractor could be moved into Belmont's buildings section. Extractors around eye could be shifted elsewhere. You get the idea. Simple changes bring a view of freshness to the entire scope. Grave outlook could be moved to Endless Watch up above on the hillside.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bctrainers
Zerg Mentality of the maps.
Let's face it, both maps are HIGHLY conductive towards zerging. Why? Because there's vast open spaces on both maps. This lessens the ability for any decent strategy between premades and pugs. Let's use stillmoor's Desolate Field for example. Extractor in the middle of this open area. Said extractor could be placed into the building of Desolate Field, in the segment known as Ruston. Breaking away from open segments of conquest can procure more intelligent movement for pugs and premades. Moving SA into the southern portion of CM is an option. Simply put, moving open-landed extractors into areas with a lot of scenery/objects to block line of sight and other tactical placements would be much welcome to begin the deterrent of mass zerging.
Pugs quitting when they get wiped.
This is going to happen regardless of any faction, premade faction or purely pug faction. You cannot force people to remain doing something. Some people are just there for top be carried - then leave when wiped because competition and 'things', some are there to finish a weekly (monthly :tongue2: ). There is NOTHING that can be done to change this mentality other than possible incentives of actually PVPing other players and getting a small reward for doing it. For example, every 50 kills, you'd get a "Fragment of the Frozen Heart" in your rift loot bag. you have to put some sort of carrot on the stick to make some content relevant, but not make it atrocious.
Bad implementation of scoring mechanics.
Numerous times, and more often than not, kills are put to the side in conquest to win it. It's purely objective based, and kills are tossed to the side - and that's a problem. Kills need to be added to a factions winning chance in stillmoor and steppes. X amount of kills causes Y reaction to the faction. X amount of deaths to a faction causes Z reaction to the faction. Of course, those are bad idea, but it's a start...
Closing thoughts
- Revamp conquest completely in how it functions.
- Introduce new maps; Shimmersand, Moonshade, Ardent Domain, Dendrome, Tarken Glacier, they all have a potential method to conquest.
- Revamp the conquest joining methods.
- Revamp how rewards are granted.
- Introduce additional modes to conquest.
- If more maps are introduced to conquest, introduce a method allowing players to vote for the next CQ Map and mode. (Of course, particular maps would be locked out for the next CQ vote)
Source: http://forums.riftgame.com/newreply....eply&p=4994746
I agree with all of this. Bc has been in CQs from the very beginning and most of his thoughts about CQ are spot on. Having been a CQ lead on both maps for awhile, his thoughts on zerg mentality, pugs quitting and ways to improve these areas of CQ should be looked into by the Devs.
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In closing, I enjoy CQ, I enjoy competition and large scale fights in RIFT. In it's current state, CQ is broken. Premades are getting stacked instead of place against each other and we, the players, feel that CQ needs an update.
@The Readers
If you agree or disagree please comment, but keep it civil. CQ threads have been very volatile as of late and I don't want to see this one go up in flames as well.
@Archonix, Daglar and other Devs.
Please don't ignore CQ, it's an important part of the game and we'd like to see it improved.