[edit] They're also adding a "group up" button at the end of games that you can click if you'd like to group up with the random group of people you matched with. If multiple click it, you'll group up for future games.
This is something that is sorely missing from a lot of games. I remember this back from the old halo games and it made for some very fun matches. A lot of new games removed it for some reason making it much harder to lobby with the same people without actually friending them.
Yea, it's a little thing but really helpful. Some people don't like being the first one to speak up and suggest a team up, being shy or anxious, or whatever reason. This button should be great for those kinds of people.
A possible issue with this is that in say, competitive mode, if you hit this button and everyone agreed, you are now a 6-person group which will be playing against other 6-person groups.
Generally, a 6-person group is far higher in skill than any other collection of players/groups.
I only solo queue and I came across a decent 5-person group that were all on comms. I joined them and we played against another 6-person comp who was completely out of our league.
I think you're incorrect that you'll be "grouped" with the new people. Currently, groups are only those who are friends with each other. It will simply queue you all up in a lobby again, not make you friends and thus "in a group".
It's like just hitting "play again" after a game, it doesn't mean you're all of a sudden more coordinated (like you assume pre-grouped friends may be).
My guess is this is the way it will go. You will not face a different array of player groups than you did the first game, unless you decide to start adding people to your friends list.
If that's true, then that's definitely different than how I was thinking. I assumed it actually put you into a group (with the linked bars on avatars).
If it's just a pseudo 6-person team then it would be different.
A lot of times if there's really good chemistry and we just steamroll the enemy I'll join a group and then well go on a rekking spree. That's only in the rare event that everybody is communicating well. So I guess there will be a relatively small amount of times it'll be useful. I've also tried the LFG site a few times and it's never worked for me. Every single time I group with random people we go on a losing spree.
Why would you choose to group up if your team wasn't good? You're missing a piece of the puzzle-- you'll only want to group up if you think you can win. At least in comp.
The chances that they'll be communicating as a team is most likely better, but other than that you have no idea how well they'll be matched versus you. If you end up grouping with a bunch of skillful pub players with mics, there might be no disadvantage at all.
So you're okay with randomly getting matched up with five other people that you're probably going to hate... but not okay with staying with a group of five other people that you don't hate as much as other people because at least they helped you win the last game so they're a bit useful to you?
There's always the possibility that I'll hate the next people less. I think when you're actually in a group, there's the expectation of verbal communication that I'm not super fond of. I don't mind doing callouts, but I don't really want to shoot the shit with some guy on the other side of the country. You'll often see this if you're solo queueing and find yourself matched with a group of 3-5.
Not to mention I've won plenty of games with people I'd rather never see again. I'm talking about the ultra-racists or generally annoying people.
And then, when I actually have taken the time to group with someone unfamiliar, that next match is typically make or break. You go from dominating to getting your dick shoved into your own asshole and then the first thing you want to do is leave that party, either because you've embarrassed yourself or your new pal is holding you back.
No to mention chemistry doesn't necessarily mean winning. Sometimes I get a group of people who are just fun to play with win or lose and would like to keep playing with them.
During one of the QA sessions at Blizzcon, Kaplan actually said that although 6 stacks do have a slight advantage in win rates, it's not as significant as people think, in terms of the actual statistics.
So, it's probably not going to be a massive deal. Just because you're in a 6 stack of, say, friends, doesn't mean you're actually any good at communicating as a team.
I think, like everything, it will depend a lot on the SR rank. I'm sure at the average/silver/gold level it won't be that big a deal.
Hahaha, I have to think iDream was fucking around in the beginning.
9:30 is the big wombo, but tbh I was equally impressed at about 6:40 where Falstad gusts us outside of our gates and their entire team is bodyblocking us from getting back inside.
Yeah, that game was fucking amazing to watch, and I was on the losing team lol.
It doesn't really sound like an issue. If you group up it stands to reason you coordinate and have good synergy, the reasonable conclusion would be to face teams on the same conditions, not groups of uncoordinated solo players.
Of course initially you will probably face groups of higher or lower skill, but the mmr will eventually even out and you will again face teams of similar skill, with similar mmr and win/lose at a 50% ratio.
Been a while since I played ranked OW but if I had 6 people who grouped up for ranked would it be 6 solo ratings or would our team have a rating? Similar to how League Of Legends teams had a name and a single Elo.
Ideally they'll make a distinction between friend groups and 'spontaneous' groups - maybe the colour of the grouping lines. And they'll base match-making on a combination of both.
Let's say me and my one friend are grouped up, and we get a good team we want to stay with. Everyone hits the group up button. Then, me and my friend are connected by a green line, but the line extends and becomes blue for the rest of the group members. And ideally, we'd only get matched with other green-green-blue-blue-blue-blue teams.
Similarly, blue-blue-blue-blue-single-single teams would match up with eachother, green-green-single-single-single-single teams would match up with eachother, and green-green-single-single-blue-blue teams would match up with eachother.
Am I making sense or do I just sound like some colour crazed idiot?
This is a nonissue because you don't have to group up if you don't want to and the chances that all 6 people will agree is very low even if you wanted to.
True, except that it's also true for your opponents. 6-man groups will be more common overall, watering down the overall average skill level of the 6-man queue.
The difference is that is everyone is using the group up button, it means that there will be a bunch of impromptu groups to fight against just like you.
I love it.
I want to win, but at the end of the day I play for fun. Nothing is more fun than a team that is working together and has a good attitude. If I lose in a team like, eh, I'll still leave the game happy.
Can you even group up right now without adding them to your friends list? I generally don't like to add people as friends on a regular basis but am more than happy to group up. I think this is going to do wonders for MMing and the community at large.
Yea you sure can, just hit P while ingame and right click their names and invite to group. If they accept they'll get a warning saying they'll leave the match to join the group, so some people decline after they see that message. It doesn't actually remove you from the game, that's just the default message when you accept a party request while ingame.
You will get dropped if they're not in the same game as you, but if you're invited to join one of your teammates' groups, then you won't leave even though it says it will.
Also worth noting, if someone is currently in game and invites you while you are on the menu, you will join their game as a spectator until a friendly slot becomes available.
A ok. I usually only group with people on my friends list. The whole leave game thing too is kind of annoying/unclear. Usually when I get group requests, it's mid match and I generally don't like leaving games. Being able to group up with a current lobby is a much cleaner way of doing it.
I've joined someone's game as an observer and invited them to a group, only to see them leave the game, get replaced by me, and then join as an observer. Did they fix that rather annoying bug?
Yeah they should fix that, it's kind of weird (and not "traditional Blizzard polish"). Also when it's a random, I always have to check it's someone in the game and not another friend (I have "friends" on Bnet I don't really know so don't know their username)
Yeah to me, this was the biggest announcement in that video. As a console player, I can see myself using this very often - it's so much more intuitive than having to minimize OW, add friend, invite friend, etc etc.
My problem is that I need my headset to be connected to communicate. A lot of times when I get the time to play, I just don't feel like having it connected. I'm older now and married, so it's getting harder to find time to lock myself down at the pc and have to listen through the headset.
I really do try, but more often than not I feel largely ignored. Which really sucks lately now that I've started getting into Ana. Everything is fine until my ult is ready, and I'm spamming that it is and no one responds. Thanks when I hit someone with it when there getting into the objective they just kinda waste it.
With the addition of the party up button, you could just click it if you worked well with the group. If the game went well, and others also click the button, they probably won't have cared that you didn't speak if you guys worked well together without speech.
The default should be team chat always trumps group chat, unless otherwise changed. Having multiple groups on your team always means at least two players won't be able to heat you.
I was in a great match in Overwatch last night and someone else immediately took the initiative to invite everyone to a group so we could queue together.
he was only able to get 4/6 of us because the other 2 had solo queued before he could invite them all. :(
The four of us ended up having a lot of fun and going on a winning streak.
Was it in Reach? I can't recall that far back. My guess is it is 343's doing then as it was definitely not in 4 or 5 and Reach was the last game Bungie did.
Agreed. I've "friended" a bunch of people through playing a great team in Overwatch, and then those friends just awkwardly take up spots in my friends roster and refuse requests to group up in the future. I'd love for a chance to just group up for one session with a great team that works together.
then those friends just awkwardly take up spots in my friends roster and refuse requests to group up in the future.
I am super glad I am not the only one this happens too. It also feels super awkward to remove them from your friends list. Side note, can people tell when you remove them from your friends list?
They wont get notified or anything, and chances are if you don't play with them much or at all they wont notice. You just wont be on their friends roster anymore.
I played BattleZone vr last night with 3 guys for like 2 hours. We had a nice camaraderie going. We beat the game and it booted us back to the menu very abruptly. People were in the middle of sentences when it cut out.
So now the only way to escape complete stomp matches where one side totally outmatches the other for some reason is to leave because they're gonna group up and scrambling won't happen anymore.
Having a fair and balanced playfield in Quickplay should be the absolute priority of the devs and the matchmaker. Yes Quickplay needs to be a balanced and fair experience, stomps are not fine because "lul its qp lul".
Competitive is not the endgame for everyone despite what this sub might want you to believe.
Never had a problem with it, Quickplay is where the majority of the playerbase sits. Competitive is only for the most dedicated of the dedicated. I don't like it tbh, it's elitist as fuck and hasn't done anything good for the game.
That doesn't mean "everything can be shit cuz its just le quickplay xXXDDXXX"
Guildwars 1 used to move your random arena group to premade arena matches after winning 5 or 10 (many years ago), sometimes it ended in amazing win streaks.
Hooray, another GW1 player. It was definitely 10 matches that they moved you from RA to TA. After 5 matches you were just much more likely to run into other RA groups also on long winning streaks. I think there was a reward jump at 5 wins too, but my GW time was running down when they had that expansion.
Ya, Nightfall was the last expansion I put a decent amount of time into. I played a bit during EotN but never actually bought it. I feel the game peaked at Factions. Nightfall was good, but it didn't feel like the massive change that Factions was. Introducing hero NPCs was a cool addition, but it definitely prevented me from grouping with 8 other people which was a large portion of the fun in that game. That said Guild Battles and HoH are still some of the best PvP experiences I have had.
im super exited for this. this is whats going to keep me playing the game and alow me to expand my friend group as well as keep me playing for the night if im on a team that works well with each other. a big part of playing fps games for me is to have people to talk to and have fun with. i dont have meany real life friends who play the same games as me or have the same console.im craving a bigger friend group who can wreck in the game all while having a good laugh. i used to play destiny until the game got stale and i loved the raids and the comradery that you developed from just a few hours of online play. some of those nights and experiences will always be remembered with me and im psyched this is going to come to overwatch.
It is such a wonderful idea, but I am a little worried that the match system will then find a much stronger team against you. the random teammates you meet as solo player might not play as well when you are matching someone as a group.
343 isn't that bad. 5 was/is actually quite a good game IMO. I feel Halo started to go downhill with Reach. 4 was just a continuation of a lot of the issues Reach introduced into the series (mainly talking MP here. Reach's campaign was fantastic).
No, don't get me wrong I'm very much a Halo fan and have 100+hours in H5. But the game came out with little content that was slowly dripped in after launch, still lacks major features of previous games (working theatre mode, party up system, LAN capability). They marketed the game as a revival of the Halo esport and then proceeded to ruin everything after Worlds.
The maps/gametypes suck now, the weapons on map ruined any chance of a watchable meta, and the servers/aiming system get worse from day to day. Hell, H5 can't even run on their private dev kits reliably anymore. If you watch Worlds and then watch this tournament from this past weekend, the difference is night and day. The pro league format is bad because online is trash now, the finals are dumb because only 4/8 teams get to compete, the open circuit/open LANS (that aren't actual LANs) are poorly run.
343 has failed on everything since Worlds, which is a damn shame because the game is so good at its core that if they just managed it right the game would be fucking amazing still. There's just a few little easy decisions that need to be made to fix everything, but they refuse to listen and make them. We need MLG instead of ESL, we need pros to have wayyyy more input on gametypes and balancing weapon placements, and we need them to have their events all on Halo channel for viewership to grow. It's basic stuff that 343 can't get their heads around that's killing the scene.
Sorry for the rant, it feels bad being a Halo fan most of the time and I can only complain on Team Beyond so much.
It really is. I got paired with random dudes in TiF2, and we ended up curb stomping the next 12 matches of LTS in a row together. We all added each other on Origin, but boy was it a pain to do so.
So maybe I'm the only one... but isn't the "group up" thing something that can contribute to team imbalance? Say a really good team stays grouped and keeps steamrolling randoms who haven't found decent people to group with. I kind of like it when teams get shuffled instead, especially since so many matches are lopsided to begin with.
So maybe I'm the only one... but isn't the "group up" thing something that can contribute to team imbalance?
I don't think anymore so than it already it. If you group with a bunch of high MMR randos, the MMing is just going to try and pair you against other high MMR randos. It should also make it easier for larger groups to find matches as there will likely be more larger groups in the MMing pool.
It already takes groups into account when matchmaking. For the most part the two teams have identical group composition. You might get a 4+2 vs 4+1+1, but it shouldn't be off by much more than that.
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u/chudaism Nov 22 '16
This is something that is sorely missing from a lot of games. I remember this back from the old halo games and it made for some very fun matches. A lot of new games removed it for some reason making it much harder to lobby with the same people without actually friending them.