Solo Lobby Size Experiment Feedback Thread

[Yoshiro]

Agents,

Let us know your feedback about the solo lobby size experiment here!

Be sure to let us know how you felt about:

• Early game combat
• 3rd partying
• Chance at victory

 

[Sheldun]

Lower player counts in solos have quite frankly been depressing to the point where we are at the unfortunate situation of just beeing able to scan a lobby and you are able to just tell who is winning without even having to play the match, because of the lack of third partying that is able to take place in these matches, the best players just stomp even harder than normal and don't have anything at all to keep them in line in these lobbies, just becoming constant win screens. It's really not fun to play through these, please put the lobby sizes back to 10.

 

[Realmjumper]

I like the lower player count I feel I have more of a chance to win and can sneak a bit more. It's hard to win though.

 

[Crafty_Genius]

TLDR: I like the lower lobby size and I hope it stays.

The start of the solo matches feels like it's a bit easier to get intel points whereas in some matches with more players my experience has been that it's difficult to even get into the high level areas due to lack of points.

3rd partying in my experience has been minimal until the later parts of the match start (such as everyone converging on the briefcase or trying to get to the extraction points before that person does), but early and mid-matches seem mostly to be 1-on-1.

As for winning, it feels like if you play smart you have a good chance at winning and this chance seems higher than when there are more players.

 

[TheCreatorT]

Let's go down the list for my feedback!

• Early game combat
  • Early game combat has decreased heavily during the experiment, with much more of it happening when the vault has opened. This does prevent early lobby massacres but it also can make the early game more boring. Somewhat paradoxically, it does feel like you can sneak more and try to play as a predator singling out targets, but I don't think this should be at the cost of early game action.
• 3rd Partying
  • 3rd partying has also decreased heavily, but I do not think that is necessarily a good thing. As much as everyone has had a frustrating 3rd party experience, there are gadgets and expertises that can mitigate it. Additionally, 3rd partying was one of the few ways higher level players were kept in check and that is no longer the case.
• Chance at victory
  • I will admit I spent most of this weekend leveling up characters I did not have max mastery for so I cannot really give much input, but what I will say is that with smaller lobbies those 400 level 50 mastery players are now curbstomping even harder (I will say when I was playing my mains I seemed to be winning more but I don't feel confident enough to call that an accurate observation).
• Summary
  • I think the smaller lobbies do reduce the problem of 10 player lobbies, that being a large number of early game deaths, but exasperate the problems of a smaller player base. Namely, that the same players keep dominating lobbies and that by creating slower games it can create situations that are more boring as well as make it harder to get better because there is less action.

 

[IRISproject]

Generally speaking, I have felt and enjoyed the lower lobby sizes. 7 is extreme, but it really highlights how horrid 10 player lobbies truly were. Constant fighting, very little spying. Now it feels like a better blend of stealth and fights, but I do have gripes with it's current iteration.

• Early game fights
  • I did noticed a sharp drop in early fights, both in initiating and third partying/witnessing those fights. More players generally survive until Phases 2 and 3, which is excellent.
  • This, however, has made the early game incredibly boring for some folks - myself included. Pretty much 0 fights happen currently in Phase 1, and if it happens its rare. One fight at most, usually. Makes for exciting end-game, but the early game just now encourages and leans much heavier into rushing the objective to force those fights.
• 3rd Partying (3P)
  • A sharp drop in Phases 1 and 2 of 3p, while increasing it in Phase 3. Inherently a good thing, but I feel like part of the charm of the game was the risk that no fight is ever truly over, and while that stance is still true; I and others can feel pretty safe after a fight generally speaking now, immediately knowing that there's less folks at risk of coming to kill us after a fight.
  • This, however, isn't necessarily a bad thing? It helps new players, but I think 7 gives the players just a bit too much breathing room after taking out a rival.
• Chance at Victory
  • If newer folks don't get good players in their lobbies, generally speaking yeah I can see them feeling like they have a higher chance to win (from a 10% chance on avg to 14.3%. Not much of an increase, but it is noticeable for some players.)
  • Unfortunately, though, lobbies have felt 'too free' for more experienced and skilled folks, where those players who were dominating 10 player lobbies are dominating HARDER in 7 player lobbies. Not necessarily a sole fault of the 7 player system (no real SBMM helps), but it's a lot harder to get a few good players in the same lobby now due to less slots, so they're more 'spread', making more games have these skilled players dominating.
  • Generally speaking, lobbies are being rushed through the early phases now due to more experienced players just naturally feeling much safer and comfier in these lower lobbies (as the chances of actually encountering another player is lower, never mind a player of skill that can contest them), which makes games go by faster. Players can't really get upgrades or keycards, and these players that are rushing usually have a common factor which enables this even faster; Keycards, or Gold Overclocking Chip (Hack Speed, for those who don't know the names). Securing these as a rusher is incredibly easy, as someone who does it, which then speeds up every single phase of the game. 7 player lobbies are just enabling this harder for those kind of players.
  • As Sheldun described, you can essentially look at the names of players and if you recognise someone in that lobby and you know they're a good player, you can essentially go "oh, that person is winning this game." This happened before, but now in a 7 player lobby you feel it worse.

 

[Z&B]

Lower player counts in solos have quite frankly been depressing to the point where we are at the unfortunate situation of just beeing able to scan a lobby and you are able to just tell who is winning without even having to play the match, because of the lack of third partying that is able to take place in these matches, the best players just stomp even harder than normal and don't have anything at all to keep them in line in these lobbies, just becoming constant win screens. It's really not fun to play through these, please put the lobby sizes back to 10.

You make it sound like skill is something static lol, the changes are almost good, the only somewhat valid point made in this entire thread is that Phase 1 is a little uneventful.

#cavalieredidnothingwrong

 

[Z&B]

• Chance at Victory
  • If newer folks don't get good players in their lobbies, generally speaking yeah I can see them feeling like they have a higher chance to win (from a 10% chance on avg to 14.3%. Not much of an increase, but it is noticeable for some players.)
  • Unfortunately, though, lobbies have felt 'too free' for more experienced and skilled folks, where those players who were dominating 10 player lobbies are dominating HARDER in 7 player lobbies. Not necessarily a sole fault of the 7 player system (no real SBMM helps), but it's a lot harder to get a few good players in the same lobby now due to less slots, so they're more 'spread', making more games have these skilled players dominating.
  • Generally speaking, lobbies are being rushed through the early phases now due to more experienced players just naturally feeling much safer and comfier in these lower lobbies (as the chances of actually encountering another player is lower, never mind a player of skill that can contest them), which makes games go by faster. Players can't really get upgrades or keycards, and these players that are rushing usually have a common factor which enables this even faster; Keycards, or Gold Overclocking Chip (Hack Speed, for those who don't know the names). Securing these as a rusher is incredibly easy, as someone who does it, which then speeds up every single phase of the game. 7 player lobbies are just enabling this harder for those kind of players.
  • As Sheldun described, you can essentially look at the names of players and if you recognise someone in that lobby and you know they're a good player, you can essentially go "oh, that person is winning this game." This happened before, but now in a 7 player lobby you feel it worse.

People will improve naturally when playing the game, hell I have not touched any multiplier shooter for YEARS before DInc. and I win decently often, your ability to aim is not static and eventually the people who get ""stomped"" will be on the same level, unless it's just someone playing Yumi W3E2 with shield and bounce mat : ). Matchmaking systems just keep people at the same skill level instead of letting them improve.

 

[Human_Kirby]

I actually kind of like it, but there is 2 massive * on it. I haven't played a ton of it, but here is my feedback so far.

1. The matchmaking needs to be a lot tighter. I can see a lower player count having its place in tournaments, but in its current form it is really not a fit for the limited matchmaking we have. This might increase lobby times but right now I think low level players will have even less fun then before.
2. The game needs to slow down a bit. Right now it is very easy to just rush, since you are less likely to be detected by an enemy player, and even if you are, you are far less likely to be third partied if you win the fight. While I think this is good to encourage more creative, longer fights where you can reposition constantly, it also has the negative effect of the first phase being over way too quickly and usually one or two players hording all upgrades and keycardds. Not sure how to best approach it, though.

 

[paraxpluie]

My issue with the lobby size being 7 was that as someone who mainly plays Cav, there were barely any traces to be found. Her expertise is the most effective during phase 1, and the lower lobby size means very little traces - which in my opinion, makes her almost completely redundant. On smaller maps, I combatted this by placing expertise cooldown on blue chip or higher. However, on Fragrant Shore which is the most extensive map, even with my expertise cooldown on purple, I could only get 2 to 3 traces by the time the vault was open. On the other maps, I would get about 3 to 4 traces most of the time.

This brings me to my next issue - one thing I noticed is that either all terminals would be done within a VERY short amount of time, or none at all. The issue obviously does not lie purely due to the lobby size, but I do think it contributed. Again, as someone who plays mainly Cav, this means that due to the terminals being done so fast, everyone was rushing to the vault, rendering Cav's expertises practically useless. Or, when no terminals were done, it meant that players were doing nothing or very little - again, meaning no traces were left to be found.

Did I win as Cav during this experimental weekend? Yes, I did. But I don't think her expertises helped me very much in the majority of the games won.

 

[MuseMagician]

From what I experienced this is what I encountered:

• Early game combat

I was very surprised at the amount of fights that happened early game. I usually got 1-2 kills in before things started becoming really quite in the match. I can easily identify the sweaty 400 players that I know I'm going to end up meeting late game going into the vault for Phase 3 because everyone is pretty much dead even before Phase 2. I feel that 7 players is fine, but it comes down to matchmaking.

• 3rd partying

I've seen little 3rd Partying, if any in my experience during this test Phase. I've only 3rd partied the case holder a few times because either player I'm fights become unaware of me running up to them. Not much 3rd partying happens in my matches and I really like that. It gives players a chance to fight it out without having to worry about a separate player feeding on the victor from the fight.

• Chance at victory

Very low for newer players and wayyyyyy higher for players that are very skilled. Given you don't see anyone third party, the lol 400, 1k+ hour players will have an advantage over anyone else since they play the game religiously. I've run into Sheldun (Hans P*** Drinker) several times in matches and it always turns out to be me and him in the end. It's the goal to be sneaky, quite and slip past others, but it's a goal I just hope that some minor tweaks will hopefully fix some of the current issues. .

 

[Skiffin]

I think this change is good overall, but now some sort of skill-based matchmaking is even more needed.
For example:
Separate all lobbies into 2 or 3 different ranking groups. This way we only increase queue times by 2 or 3 times, but I think it is still better than nothing. So if we decide to divide the solo mode player base by 2, which would look like this: 50% with lover then average MMR goes to the lower queue and those who are upper 50% goes to higher. At least this way completely new players won't face veterans with high ratings and K/D, but players who are in the middle will feel a sudden transition into way harder games (at which point the only improving point is to divide player base even more by 3 or 4).

 

[dtimer]

I didn't like this change. It felt very empty in the game, and strong players demolished everyone else really fast.

 

[Z3R0SUGR]

I dont like how small the size was and i would always get 5-6 player lobbies and rarely get 7, i just want to make it clear that an 8 or 9 player lobby would make the game feel like a spy game rather than a BR or not being able to get the briefcase or phase 2/3. Like i said an 8 or 9 player lobby would work really well and would not have all players 1v1ing on spawn like silver reef (10 Player lobbies) but also not encountering anyone the entire game (7 player lobbies). im not saying like hate 7 or 10 player lobbies i just think the game plays completely differently for each one and i would rather have the more spy like game like DINC actually is. That my thought's.

 

[Superbiscuit64]

I personally really liked the change! It generally feels bad to get third partied and because of that I would rarely risk early game combat even if I knew for sure that somebody was a spy. It definitely increased my chance at victory as I could more confidently take fights when I suspected somebody was a spy, and wasn't punished as hard for shooting an npcs on accident. I also noticed that the time it took to get into a match was much shorter meaning that losing a match didn't feel as bad as I could jump right into another one.

Overall, as a newer player, the experiment felt like an all around positive experience for me.

 

[eboi07]

• Early game combat
  • I noticed much less of this unfortunately. Too many fire fights is a problem, yes; but I noticed that there wasn't much action until the vault was opened in the games I played and watched on Twitch. Not having any action until the end made me actually miss the bigger lobbies. I feel like there has to be a better way to discourage wiping out the lobby at the start that doesn't require the lobby size itself to shrink. Overall, all that 5-7 player lobbies did was make it so that the action was thinly spread out.
• 3rd partying
  • This did not change from my perspective. Sound carries just as much as did before with larger lobbies. And with that, people just swoop in as they've always done.
    • Idea 1: To remedy this, I think the Spy Pack should be buffed to support mitigating this. When an player in a fight downs someone, they could get some kind of temporary buff that gives them more of edge against incoming players hoping to take advantage of them being at low HP e.g. invisibility, invulnerability, or some other effect that is appropriate for a couple seconds. That would enable them to either stand their ground or find an escape route to get back to deceiving.
    • Idea 2: If that doesn't work, maybe Iris / the player's hacking watch could have a base kit danger-sense-like mechanic. During fights, she could maybe alert in an extremely limited way that it's not safe or that players are on the way to wipe you out.
    • Idea 3: Another route could be PvE penalties for engaging in third parties. The spies joke that the guards are... a joke. When the guards engage in fights in response to agent battles, maybe they could do more to squash fights and third parties of that fight with gadgets of their own e.g. temporary barricades, traps that break spy cover, traps that apply debuffs, etc. That way, it's more of a challenge to leave where one is to swoop into a fight.
• Chance at victory
  • I feel like chance at victory didn't change too much. The path to it just got slower. With smaller lobbies, I noticed that players camp more and don't go after vault terminals as often.

 

[Epoxidation1]

I enjoy playing this game fast with a lot of sprinting. The 7 player lobbies felt like a lot of 1v1's and i enjoy those more than being shot in the back constantly. Just my personal preference to avoid third partying but the maps do feel a bit empty especially if you do third a fight early and wipe players early. Left running to most of the terminals to do the objectives myself at that point. I don't mind ten player lobbies but 7 player did avoid that early game scenario of spawning on someone elses head and being shot after 3 steps. Thats a positive difference. Honestly i enjoy the game with both lobby sizes.

 

[Sheldun]

You make it sound like skill is something static lol, the changes are almost good, the only somewhat valid point made in this entire thread is that Phase 1 is a little uneventful.

#cavalieredidnothingwrong

My post came from the perspective of someone who was just constantly stomping on these lobbies. I could be even more reckless in a 7 man solo lobby because of the very low likelihood of being third partied. These changes haven't really brought many positives, I'm not saying there aren't any but I feel like a lot of the negative impacts unfortunately overshadow the positives that were brought with this experiment.

 

[Realmjumper]

I enjoyed the lower player count. It made it feel more stealth like and I was able to sneak around more.

 

[1stGlitch]

Alright its been like a week but I'm finally ready to give my thoughts on this experiment. I'm going to try to separate my thoughts into sections of "here's what I experienced" and "here's how I felt about that", since those are both important.

• Early game combat:
  • I experienced less in general, in the same way I'd experience less if there was only 2 players on the map. While I still spawned right next to someone who didn't know how to be an NPC and killed them in the first 30 seconds, there was less opportunity for early game fights.
  • This made phase 1 feel empty and basically risk-free, I was able to continue to take riskier and riskier actions with little to no punishment, it really stopped giving me that feeling of anyone around could be a player.
  • Overall, there was less early game fighting, and I found that to be negative.
• 3rd partying:
  • There was less of this in the first 2 phases for sure. There was a significant increase in the third phase, if its still considered 3rd partying at that point, and I'm not sure it is. With less players there's less opportunity for 3+ players to intersect, as well as less reason to as there are more resources per person (e.g. 4 gold chips in a 10 person lobby gives 40% of the players a gold chip, 4 golds in a 7 player lobby gives 57% of players a gold chip)
  • I often experienced 3 or 4 other players making it to phase 3, which disincentivized me from being the player with the package as I found it easier to be one of 3 without.
  • There was less 3rd partying early which made fights feel less risky overall, and more 3rd, 4th, & 5th partying in the endgame which made being the 1 feel bad
• Chance at victory:
  • I'm not sure I played enough to be able to evaluate this. I feel like I was making it to the end game pretty much just as often as in 10 player lobbies, perhaps more, but I wouldn't say that increased my chance at victory. In fact with more players making it to those later stages it may have decreased that chance.
  • I never really look at my winrates, as its not a statistic I value, so I can't say if it increased or decreased during the experiment.
  • Overall I think I felt like my chance at victory was unchanged, in both 10 and 7 player lobbies I felt I had a decent chance at winning, though you can argue I'm overconfident if you want.
• Overall:
  • I felt this to be a negative change
  • The game felt empty until the ending where it became a free for all
  • Phases 1 & 2 went either incredibly fast or incredibly slow
  • My skill at blending in as an NPC felt irrelevant and instead I just relied (more so than usual) on no one being around
  • The change certainly effected both the amount of early game combat and 3rd partying, but in my opinion these weren't major issues the game was facing