Crossout=pay and win

Discussion
122

That sounds like an unfortunate game mechanic. Is it mandatory to play at 12K? Do people need to have a whale’s inventory to enjoy this game, obviously? Is Clan Wars VIP only? Is PVP VIP only? Are the rest of us without god-accounts supposed to be satisfied with PVE?

That rhetoric is to illustrate the issue of why people might think this game is pay to win, and are not serious questions, but I think it underlines why people are so frustrated with this game.

Personally, I don’t think you can buy your way out of how bad PVP is, and the problems are more severe than these developers seem to be able to handle efficiently. This game sucks often, and people suspect that they are getting pwnd by wallets (like having a richer account would solve their problem), when they are actually getting pwnd by game mechanics poorly addressed by the developers. Or, do they do this on purpose? IDK.

The matchmaker in PVP exerts a lot of influence over the outcome of matches, IMO. I think that system is either corrupt intentionally, or it’s complexity is beyond the developers ability to manage. Either way, it sucks, and sucks often. I think that feature is the actual source of people’s frustration, and buying fancy gear won’t fix it.

The only thing I think that will help you around it (to win-win-win) is to exploit the game’s flaws and broken features outside of the developers control by way of the META. That’s how you win. No matter what’s in your inventory, you will need to use it to exploit the game’s broken mechanics to win consistently. Otherwise, the game’s matchmaker will just slowly crank up the difficulty, and it takes an exploit to overcome that “feature.”

I think it’s META to win, not pay to win, and that META typically relies on features that work improperly. In short: hovers are stupid (not really the only offender. Just making a point).

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123

I know what your trying to say, but I’m not sure I 100% agree.

People can play any PS level and they can play any combination of items they like.

But for me personally, in many cases, I would rather a full set of the rarity below then a non-complete set of the weapon above.

If people would stay in their lane more they would have more success.

For example - if I want to play lower PS - I would rather run a full set of epics or teals then run and incomplete set of yellows.

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124

I don’t think that’s as true as it should be. They could tighten up some things and make it so, and I wish they would.

Somebody’s damn hover META is blocking the road. Can we get a crew on that, sooner than later? Also, I seem to have a flat tire. I get out and look at it, and nothing appears to be wrong with it. But then I get in and drive, and it’s like sluggish and sticky, or something. They seem to attach themselves to other cars and certain obstacles and won’t let go. WTF? Did I run over some tar?

My point is that the balance in this game is as bad as it’s ever been. Staying in your lane isn’t really possible, as the matchmaker doesn’t allow it, and constantly pushes you upward and into shark infested waters, I presume with the intent of selling you more goodies you think you need to survive, or to restrict you from harvesting more resources than the developers think you should be able to.

I lay the lion’s share of my beef with this game on the matchmaker in PVP. I would love to stay in my lane, but my experience here leads me to believe that I’m not allowed to, and I’m being forced out of my comfort zone artificially by a nefarious matchmaker.

Like I’ve said before, I have a pay to play account, but if I tried to play at 5k with it, the matchmaker spins forever like there aren’t any available players. If I switch to this F2P account, I get matches with very brief waits…and oddly the same guys in them over and over like they are the only 6 people playing.

Because of this completely BS “random” matchmaking, I am forced to agree with you, in that PVP is not a truly competitive mode. It is a win management system (or resource scarcity management), but it’s definitely free to play (be aggravated by), and I don’t think buying your way around that is possible. In fact, my experience is that my P2P account runs worse than this F2P account.

Last night I tried nearly the exact same build on my P2P account as I was running on this F2P account, and the matchmaker just stuck me in the eternal queue. Same power-score, same weapons, wheels, and modules, just fresher paint, and a Taxi cab light.

Stay in my lane? Please. I’d love that if it were possible. It really is the crux of my discontent with this game. I would LOVE to be able to just chose a power-score I’m comfortable with and play that.

Wow, that’s a lot more rambling than I thought it was. I won’t be offended if you scroll past it (or disagree with it), but I’m going to post it anyway.

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125

Even with the buffs, I think the Whirlwind is still better. They’re far cheaper, and their damage greatly increases with range. They’re also easier to build around.

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126

I’m guessing the difference between your two accounts is the experience level of the one you’ve been putting money into.
What engineer level are you at with the free one?
I know that once you get above 30, it’s tough to get into matches below 5k, because there just aren’t enough experienced players down there. I find it’s not until you get above 8kPS that you stop playing the same ten people over and over. I don’t think that’s on purpose, but rather just not enough players to pull from.

I’m still convinced that the matchmaker isn’t nearly as complicated as others believe it is. Almost everything can be explained by low player base and the difficulties of fitting groups into PVP.
But I could be wrong! I definitely used to believe that the matchmaker would increase my difficulty the better I played, but now I think I was fooling myself. I’ve tried to game the matchmaker by deliberately performing badly for a while, but I couldn’t seem to get it to feed me easier matches.

127

And you are surprised that there are few players? So I don’t. :money_mouth_face:

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128

It’s over level 30.
image

I can. There’s probably a threshold, but it certainly throws me soft pitches when I jump into a cannon build (that I’m not good at).
You’re right; I really don’t know. But, what I do know is that this game sucks off and on really bad, and for inexplicable reasons. I can’t explain any of it with any certainty, and it just feels like I’m being screwed with often.

One of the other things I find frustrating, is some of the laziest weapons in the game are the most OP. This adds to the feeling that I’m being jerked around and cheated, rather than playing competitively, or winning/loosing based on my effort or ability. Getting pwnd by some guy with a Growl and two Yaugui at 5K gets old real fast. He didn’t try very hard, nor did he build anything clever. It’s just lame AF to have that guy MVP, and bully matches so often. Even worse when there are several of them. The Borer META is just as stupid. This game could do better with less of that, IMO. Instead they nerf Augers? It makes no sense.

This game is a seal-clubber’s paradise (that looks very pay to win when you’re the seal), and never seems to be able to reel that in for very long before it’s back at it. I’ve seen it better. I think it’s pretty trashy right now, and these last several updates don’t address any of this games issues, but instead are piling them on.

Maybe they have a plan? Maybe this will all come together better once they install the spaced-armor update? IDK. At this point I don’t expect anything to get better. When was the last time that happened?

129

I agree with this 100%

BUT because people don’t understand how it works they mess up try PS. It’s a lot dumber then many think to be honest. And besides the engineer 30 rules it try’s to put you in a bracket.

One of the biggest thing people do is build a little outside of their PS bracket and then get pissed they are getting matched with higher PS players.

They feel like it should look at the PS they have, and then put them in a battle with people close to the same PS.

Well… it does and does not work that way at the same time.

It does “try” to put you in the correct “bracket”. It does not try to match PS.

But depending on how many players are trying to get a battle you might be bumped up or down a bracket from time to time.

Also, people will build right outside of a bracket then complain they are not getting matched correctly.

For example, if someone builds a car at 5000 PS - the match makers is going to do its best to put you in the 4699ps - 6499ps bracket. But sometimes you might be bumped down to the 2499ps - 4699ps bracket and sometime you might be pulled up to the 6499ps - 8999ps bracket.

Building closer to the top of a bracket helps you to not be pulled down, but building at the edge also increases your chance to be pulled up.

They do not explain brackets in the game, it’s something you need to learn from players.

130

Your screenshot explains everything.

At 4845ps you are slightly above the bracket.

Rebuild the car at 4699 - it is not an exact science. But your experience will be better.

You are slightly above the bracket, so you will be placed in 4699-6499 more often. But at 4699, you have a better chance of being put in the 2499-4699 bracket.

Also at 4845 you might be pulled to the 6499-8999 bracket if the pool of players is low.

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131

I’m actually pretty sure they got rid of brackets completely a few years ago.
The only pattern I can see is what looks like a PS range that is a certain percentage above and below the middle PS player in a match. The higher you go, the wider the spread, but I think that the percentage is constant. It’s just that 15% of 5kPS is smaller than 15% of 15kPS (that’s just an arbitrary percentage, I’m not sure what the real one is).
But things get wonky with groups, because the members of the group might have a wide PS range between themselves. And because it tries matching groups with groups, if you end up on the team with a bad group, you’re not going to win.

I also think we can get stuck in a queue sometimes, and that’s why people notice an immediate difference when they change builds. I think that bumps you out of the queue you were in, and then you randomly end up on another fresh one.

But these are just my theories.
I often have long losing streaks and long winning streaks. To me, those long streaks seem to happen when there aren’t many people online, and I’m stuck playing against the same group over and over.

132

I’ll read more, but I can stop here.

Unless it is different on different platforms, and I’m pretty sure it’s not, then they still have brackets.

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133

You said it yourself: they don’t seem to be hard brackets, so are they really brackets?

I guess you could call what I’m describing as a bracket, but it’s a sliding bracket. The more players online, the narrower the range can be.

I just know that when I’ve tried to put myself into a particular bracket, I still end up in tons of matches that don’t fit.

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134

This is something outside of the rule.

A group can force someone from a lower bracket into a higher one.

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135

All I know is that no matter how I fiddle with my PS, my matches are still generally within a range of about 3000 PS (more when you go above 10kPS).
If I play 30 matches with the same build, sometimes I’m the lowest player by 3000, sometimes the highest, and more often somewhere in the middle.
I’ve tried everything to try to force myself into the top of a bracket, but I’ve seen no evidence this is actually possible.

136

They are brackets, but have rules added to make match making faster.

I tried to explain that above but I guess it was like mud LoL.

Let’s try again.

Example: you are playing a 4699ps car. In this case the match maker is going to do its best to put you in the 2499-4699 bracket. If their are not enough people in que for that then you might get bumped up to 4699-6499.

Also everyone else is controlled by the same rules… so let’s say you had someone with 7500PS trying to que at the same time. But we don’t have enough people to make a 6499-8999 bracket game. It might pull you up… but it might also pull him down.

So if you are 4699 you might go into a game with that 7500 player. Because you got pushed up and he got pulled down at the same time. Does that make sense?

So, when the game population is high enough to support the bracket it does, and when it can’t it adjusts. You will always have better matchups building on the bracket when there are enough people online.

If I had you in voice chat I could explain easy. I hope that helps.

137

There are no brackets on PC anymore. That was over a long time ago. It used to be a thing, but they did away with that before they even started battle passes.

No, they really don’t, but with brackets there is nothing to explain, because there aren’t any. Not on PC, anyway. I can’t speak for console.

138

This is just not true.

It “Feels” like they don’t have brackets because the population is trash.

Different time zones and different parts of the world are going to be affected differently depending on the amount of players online.

For example on Xbox our euro population is almost gone, so during euro primetime their match maker struggles to work. But during US primetime it is pretty dead on.

The population on Xbox at east coast prime time is almost instant ques with full teams and mostly the correct PS. (At least at 6499+)

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139

One thing this thread has thought me is :slight_smile:

Xbox US primetime must have more players then the other platforms. We do not struggle as much as you guys seem to.

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140

I do remember when that was a thing, but I haven’t seen anybody build according to “brackets” in years. I’m open to trying though.

Ya, it makes sense, but that’s not how it ever works. The reason people get grouped with people in higher power-scores with that level of disparity is because they are winning like pros and pwning everything in sight, and can’t be stopped. It’s not due to low population. The long queues might be, but nobody sees that level of disparity unless they are on a major kill-streak, and when they are, that’s exactly what happens. It doesn’t happen when it’s slow. Never have I seen that kind of bad matchmaking simply because it was slow. People who see that are being leaned on by the matchmaker for winning like champs, not because it’s slow.

The matchmaker since 2.0 is way different than what it was prior. Maybe it’s better, maybe not, but it doesn’t use brackets. They update that system just like the rest of the game, and no they don’t ever discuss how or why, but I do think it would be hard to believe that’s the one piece of software they haven’t updated and overhauled in 5 years. It’s very different from prior to 2.0, I think, but it still has the same purpose, which I believe is to limit your ability to collect resources beyond what they see fit.

141

I was curious about the "Brackets’ dialog. I don’t like being wrong any more than the next guy, and I’d actually like to know. Totally not because I intend on exploiting it immediately. I’ll wait until this evening, at least. Maybe.

Most of what I found on the topic was initially, typically 6 years old, but this thread on reddit (ew?) discusses it, and I think the understanding they have is the one I perscribe to the most. Sigma gives the simplified, vanilla, family friendly, answer we’ve all heard before, but I think they sorted it out pretty well with that discussion. What they describe, I think, is how the official explanation of how it works would go (if there was one). I still think it’s more sinister than that, and I’ve got a friend working on the case, as we speak.

Here’s the LINK: Reddit - Dive into anything

I don’t know if this is right or wrong information. Obviously, the developers are quiet about it, so who knows? But, their consensus on that forum is how I understood the matchmaker was supposed to work, thought there was a broader consensus on this, and I’m surprised to hear this thing about brackets come up again after all this time.

I still think there is more to it (nobody else has too), but that is at least how I thought it was presented. Brackets are so 2019.