It's gotten to the point that almost all of my characters have tons of upgraded and/or mastered ships, and now if I solo queue, I'll get passed up multiple matches in a row.

Does anyone know any tricks to get past this? Does it help to have fewer ships on your bar?

If I group queue with friends, then we just roflstomp the opposition, so that's not much fun either. Solo-queueing and getting teamed with rookie pilots is really the only way to have a challenging match anymore, but I can't seem to do that.

The matchmaker uses only 3 things to determine if you get in or not while solo queueing.

1: Total Games played

2: Highest requisition ship on your bar (Mastered being the highest)

3: Time spent in queue

Once you get enough games played and have a mastered ship on your bar you start getting skipped... a lot.

My personal record for being skipped is 5 games in a row.

There's only a few things you can do to help. If you take all your mastered ships off your bar and leave low requed ones it will skip you less.

The other thing you can do is have someone else queue with you that doesn't want to play and just decline the pop every time. This way it treats you as if you were grouped but as soon as he declines the next solo queue player gets a pop instantly, just make sure he declines immediately or your team will be at a disadvantage numbers wise.

I hope that helps, I've been having issues with this problem for a really long time. My solo queue only character can't get pops anymore either.

The matchmaker uses only 3 things to determine if you get in or not while solo queueing.

 

1: Total Games played

 

2: Highest requisition ship on your bar (Mastered being the highest)

 

3: Time spent in queue

 

Once you get enough games played and have a mastered ship on your bar you start getting skipped... a lot.

 

My personal record for being skipped is 5 games in a row.

 

 

There's only a few things you can do to help. If you take all your mastered ships off your bar and leave low requed ones it will skip you less.

The other thing you can do is have someone else queue with you that doesn't want to play and just decline the pop every time. This way it treats you as if you were grouped but as soon as he declines the next solo queue player gets a pop instantly, just make sure he declines immediately or your team will be at a disadvantage numbers wise.

 

I hope that helps, I've been having issues with this problem for a really long time. My solo queue only character can't get pops anymore either.

Any idea how a group is evaluated?

Hypothetically, if I created a F2P user and ran him from a second computer, and queued with him in my group, would that make the matchmaker completely disregard my mastered ships and games played?

And also, on my server, a team of 8 without me on it will almost always be at a greater disadvantage than a team of 7 that does include me

Any idea how a group is evaluated?

 

Hypothetically, if I created a F2P user and ran him from a second computer, and queued with him in my group, would that make the matchmaker completely disregard my mastered ships and games played?

 

And also, on my server, a team of 8 without me on it will almost always be at a greater disadvantage than a team of 7 that does include me

Groups get first priority over everyone else.

If you have 1000+ games and a mastered ship and are queue'd with a brand new player you still get priority over any solo queue'd player.

It's very difficult to determine how group to group queue priority works as there usually is only a few players queueing in groups at a time so they just always play and never get skipped. I'm pretty sure if there were lets say 10 groups of 2 and they were all new players except you, your group would most likely get skipped. However there just isn't ever that many groups.

If you did setup a second account on another computer that would do exactly what you're looking for without having to bother anyone else, very cool idea.

A word of caution however if any player in your group goes afk while you are in queue, the queue will never pop. It only takes one player being afk so your entire group can't play. You would have to have the extra computer nearby to be able to declines pops and make sure both characters don't go afk.

I have collected a lot of data about the matchmaker and all that it has shown is groups alway get priority over anyone solo. The rest of the match making is very dependent on the amount of players in the queue. With only enough for one match and some stragglers, it does_odd_things.

So, move to harbinger.

A word of caution however if any player in your group goes afk while you are in queue, the queue will never pop. It only takes one player being afk so your entire group can't play. You would have to have the extra computer nearby to be able to declines pops and make sure both characters don't go afk.

But I've gotten pops while afk.

GSF doesn't care about these things like WZ does. See also: vote kick system.

Another part is *when* you are playing- it will grab someone who is vaguely close on the opposing team and let you in if you've been in queue that way. But I'm pretty sure that the f2p on a different box, in group with you, would work as you say.

The way the queues work solo is one of the big reasons I just absolutely lay into anyone who wants separate queues (aka, no veterans ever get to play- a common noob suggestion). Because that's exactly what it would be- we'd all be on alts literally all the time in order to play at all.

Sounds like you need to migrate to another server for a real challenge.

I have a guild with 150 members, a guild ship, 8+ alts, and a GSF community I largely created and nurtured. I occasionally moonlight on other servers, but I've invested way too much in TEH to truly migrate.

Plus it feels like a lot of pilots are coming to TEH.

The problem is that even when those aces start alts on TEH, their low # games played means I won't pop against them if I'm solo queued.

Fortunately, this week Eclipse Squadron has gotten a lot of new blood, and I've been pairing up with them to get into matches (and help carry them).

Now I also know that it is better to have a group of 2 and a group of 3 rather than a full group and a solo.

The matchmaker uses only 3 things to determine if you get in or not while solo queueing.

 

1: Total Games played

 

2: Highest requisition ship on your bar (Mastered being the highest)

 

3: Time spent in queue

.

Do the cartel ships count as mastered ships?

Also, why not just avoid the final upgrade on less useful components like sensors, rocket pods, etc? This would give you priority over anyone mastered without the drawbacks of having a weak ship.

Now that you mention it, I seem to get solo pops a lot easier on my alt that trolls with a level 4 sab probe Blackbolt.

Also, why not just avoid the final upgrade on less useful components like sensors, rocket pods, etc? This would give you priority over anyone mastered without the drawbacks of having a weak ship.

Three problems with this.

1. I can't un-master my components.
   
2. Why should I have to gimp myself in order to enter a match?
   
3. It's not fair that I am the only one in the match who has earned mastered components but can't use them.
   

Do the cartel ships count as mastered ships?

 

Also, why not just avoid the final upgrade on less useful components like sensors, rocket pods, etc? This would give you priority over anyone mastered without the drawbacks of having a weak ship.

 

Now that you mention it, I seem to get solo pops a lot easier on my alt that trolls with a level 4 sab probe Blackbolt.

It's most requisition on the ship is how they explained it, with a mastered ship being the highest possible. Because of that I would think Cartel ships are measured equally but it was never actually brought up in any of the livestreams/QnA's.

Avoiding the final upgrade would just put you at like 147500 out of 150000 matchmaking wise. It wouldn't do that much of a difference. Most of the time it's the "games played" category that's the problem I figure.

Do the cartel ships count as mastered ships?

No. The only thing cartel ships give you is the "10% req bonus" at the start (most ships have to drop around 150,000 req to get that bonus, so you save around 13,000 req over the life of the ship). I'm just about certain they don't count in matchmaking any different than regular ships, or any other thing.

1. It's not fair that I am the only one in the match who has earned mastered components but can't use them.
   

In fairness, that's a non-issue. If others were queuing with mastered ships they'd have a similar matchmaker profile and we wouldn't have issues getting pops.

In fairness, that's a non-issue. If others were queuing with mastered ships they'd have a similar matchmaker profile and we wouldn't have issues getting pops.

In the context of the suggestion that I roll a new alt and keep one component un-mastered for the sole purpose of gaming the matchmaker, it's a relevant issue. There may be a few other people queueing with mastered ships, but that's not going to be super common during the off-peak hours. During peak hours I can group up and game the matchmaker that way; during off-peak hours, I would be forced to gimp myself.

It's gotten to the point that almost all of my characters have tons of upgraded and/or mastered ships, and now if I solo queue, I'll get passed up multiple matches in a row.

We need cross-server queues or server merge. Even with its limitations, the matchmaker should work better with a bigger pool of singles and groups. If there is a downside, you might not get to solo-carry 7 rookies any more. Chances are you would always have a few experienced pilots on your team.

The matchmaker uses only 3 things to determine if you get in or not while solo queueing.

 

1: Total Games played

 

2: Highest requisition ship on your bar (Mastered being the highest)

 

3: Time spent in queue

Is that total games of the legacy or the character?

Groups get first priority over everyone else.

That seems true 99% of the time. The other night on the Shadowlands, I was queued with an Empire group, and a 12v12 match started without us. Those 12 all looked like solo-queuers.

In the context of the suggestion that I roll a new alt and keep one component un-mastered for the sole purpose of gaming the matchmaker, it's a relevant issue. There may be a few other people queueing with mastered ships, but that's not going to be super common during the off-peak hours. During peak hours I can group up and game the matchmaker that way; during off-peak hours, I would be forced to gimp myself.

That's the whole point—you're "gimping" yourself yet you'd still be as well or better geared than anyone else in the match with you. I don't think we can complain of that. Having to reroll an alt just for that, on the other hand, would royally suck.

Is that total games of the legacy or the character?.

It's total games on the character.

Yep, I can't really get pops on JM anymore with Zhe-Lian. I'm enough of an alt-aholic though so that it's going to be quite a while before I run out of stock Starguards.

Can confirm that it's per character and not per legacy for the matchmaker, I wouldn't be able to play GSF at all on my home server if it were legacy wide. One reason I've never asked for 'em in suggestion threads.