Fix the pub stomping
Sign up with friends, Join a guild, many guilds will recruit teach and carry .
If you wanna Rank up fast you should just stick to non-tournament SPVP btw..
Will the Real Pink Puma Please stand up?
Yes, let’s separate new/casual players from those who know what they’re doing. I’m sure they’ll learn how to get better twice as fast.
How about making a tournament mode that is only for players who sign up solo, so that the teams are only as organized as random teams can be? I believe such a mode would make pvp in Heart of the Mists much more enjoyable for everyone, except of course for the teams who laugh at the current system as they get easy points and rank for stomping free tournaments.
Agreed.
It is funny how they have the same problem in every MMO out there. All of which die PvP wise in no small part due to noncompetitive games where 1 team just gets stomped by a premade.
I mean look at SWTOR. Its a perfect example. And yet 6 months later GW2 releases with (again) no matchmaking whatsoever. Its just strange how they dont realise that matchmaking is the number 1 thing required. And that the best way to matchmake is to divide solo queuers and premade queuers.
And to the guy who says “join a premade urself”, NO! This is fail logic. Its just as lame stomping some PUG team as it is being stomped.
At this point I dont think matchmaking would work with 8 team tournys. The queues just wouldnt ever pop or the system would have to be so flexible that it would be useless.
I mean what would they do in a paid? Not trigger a tourny to start because 6 teams are higher ranked than the last 2? So everyone has to wait an hour longer? By which time they log off and nobody gets to play at all?
Matchmaking will only work if paid tournys are 1 on 1. I think this is why they are trialing 1 on 1 tournys next week. To check their new system works and then they will move to then 100% of the time when they introduce matchmaking. Otherwise matchmaking will be a bad joke.
Character: Henry rank million/Duke Henry
Necromancer/Casual Warrior
[Team] Best WvW guild of all time. EASILY.
Necromancer/Casual Warrior
[Team] Best WvW guild of all time. EASILY.
Sign up with friends, Join a guild, many guilds will recruit teach and carry .
If you wanna Rank up fast you should just stick to non-tournament SPVP btw..
I don’t believe I said anything about needing to learn how to pvp, or wanting to be carried. I don’t want to “rank up fast”.
I want to enjoy pvp through equally skilled/unskilled opponents, who can be expected to be on a similar level as myself, with equal benefits.
I know that it would be necessary for me to join a guild to achieve that due to the current system. But I also believe that it would in everyones best interest to make a simple and easy matchmaking system, where you can’t que up as a team, hence having 10 randoms 5v5 on equal terms and background.
I’m not talking about substituting the current system, as teams should also be able to have their fun – vs other teams. But why should anyone be forced to join a guild to have a chance to win a free tournament?
Yes, let’s separate new/casual players from those who know what they’re doing. I’m sure they’ll learn how to get better twice as fast.
Your comment makes no sense to me what so ever. Do you honestly think it’s better to have new/casual players come into pvp and get smacked around every game, because they are teamed with 4 other randoms vs a team or partial team of elitists?
If anything, it can only benefit that they have the option to be teamed with other new/casual players, vs new/casual players, where they have a setup which will allow them to learn the traits of battle without getting stomped.
And to the guy who says “join a premade urself”, NO! This is fail logic. Its just as lame stomping some PUG team as it is being stomped.
Glad to see someone who understands what this is about. :-)
Sign up with friends, Join a guild, many guilds will recruit teach and carry .
If you wanna Rank up fast you should just stick to non-tournament SPVP btw..
Many players don’t have friends in real life who play MMOs
Not keeping all IT jobs here is a major reason IT is so bad HERE. 33y IT 10y IT Security
I dont enjoy terribly much pug vs premade, my big issue with it, is the blasted afkers/quitters who levae bc ur fighting a premade.
There is one thing about premade vs preamde thats bad though. New teams, like guilds who pve and are like ‘ooh, lets do a tourny for fun’ will be sent crying by experienced premades.
Premade vs premade only makes it nearly impossible for teams that are newibish to learn how to play.
This thread pops up quite frequently…. so my response may seem a little harsh but you don’t actually want a response you want people to agree with you, you should have put it into suggestions.
This is a team game, if you don’t want to play a team game you might want to start playing wuvwuv instead.
Yes a team is required if you want to win free-tournys consistently,
because the meta is tryhards..
It’s very easy to get into a team, you send people tells they send you tells back, or you spam your 5-6 guilds “LF1M for tourny” .
QQing isn’t going to fix anything, go out and interact with people…
Will the Real Pink Puma Please stand up?
Pre-Made and PUGs should be split. Here is how the system should work.
Tournament Queue for solo players waits until there are 40 people queue’d up for the tournament. The tourament will then kick off and the PUG teams be all be assigned in this order. Highest Ranked Player: Team 1, Lowest Rank Player: Team 1, Second Highest Ranked Player: Team 2, Second Lowest Ranked Player: Team 2, Third Highest Ranked Player: Team 3, Third Lowest Ranked Player: Team 3…..etc…. Under this system all of the PUG teams will be somewhat balanced and the neweer players will get to team up with more experienced players and can learn from them.
Pre-Made groups stay the exact same as it is now. Wait until 8 Teams are signed up and then tournament starts.
Every one happy?
This thread pops up quite frequently…. so my response may seem a little harsh but you don’t actually want a response you want people to agree with you, you should have put it into suggestions.
This is a team game, if you don’t want to play a team game you might want to start playing wuvwuv instead.
Yes a team is required if you want to win free-tournys consistently,
because the meta is tryhards..It’s very easy to get into a team, you send people tells they send you tells back, or you spam your 5-6 guilds “LF1M for tourny” .
QQing isn’t going to fix anything, go out and interact with people…
bro are you serious? does anet pay you? you keep posting the same garbage over and over . my friends list went from 30 to 0 of pvp only players. why? because this game offers kitten for mid level players. the sooner you realize this the sooner you will stop posting this game is great nonsense.
tldr for the dense and blind. people dont want to have to spam tells to ranom people to be able to enjoy matchea with equally skilled players if they did the pvp population wouldnt be on the verge of death.
Sprawl – Necro – Eredon Terrace
(edited by Sprawl.3891)
This thread pops up quite frequently…. so my response may seem a little harsh but you don’t actually want a response you want people to agree with you, you should have put it into suggestions.
This is a team game, if you don’t want to play a team game you might want to start playing wuvwuv instead.
Yes a team is required if you want to win free-tournys consistently,
because the meta is tryhards..It’s very easy to get into a team, you send people tells they send you tells back, or you spam your 5-6 guilds “LF1M for tourny” .
QQing isn’t going to fix anything, go out and interact with people…
Let me sum up this post: “no one should ever pug because it’s a team game.”
If that were true, paids would be popping constantly and should be the only real game mode. After all, paids are team vs team. Wait, hold on—there are constant free tourneys filled with 7 pugs/1 premade. Paids come up once or twice every couple nights during prime time? Huh. Too bad everyone is doing it wrong. Well, while you wait for everyone to stop solo queueing, you could always queue for a paid.
People just want exciting matches. Those happen three ways—pug vs pug, premade vs premade, and pug vs bad premade.
Yes, let’s separate new/casual players from those who know what they’re doing. I’m sure they’ll learn how to get better twice as fast.
There is nothing to learn. Most solo-queuers are good players. The problem is that they are at a disadvantage against premades because:
1. They are teamed up with random professions which may not fit the metagame
2. They don’t have voice chat (a team with voice chat will ALWAYS win against a team without it)
It’s just stupid going against a premade.
(edited by Chi Malady.2015)
This thread pops up quite frequently…. so my response may seem a little harsh but you don’t actually want a response you want people to agree with you, you should have put it into suggestions.
This is a team game, if you don’t want to play a team game you might want to start playing wuvwuv instead.
Yes a team is required if you want to win free-tournys consistently,
because the meta is tryhards..It’s very easy to get into a team, you send people tells they send you tells back, or you spam your 5-6 guilds “LF1M for tourny” .
QQing isn’t going to fix anything, go out and interact with people…
Dota is a team game
League of Legends is a team game
Counter-Strike is a team game
Guess what, they all have solo queue, and they all have millions of players. You’re never going to attract casuals without solo queue, and casuals make up 90% of every game’s population.
I dont enjoy terribly much pug vs premade, my big issue with it, is the blasted afkers/quitters who levae bc ur fighting a premade.
There is one thing about premade vs preamde thats bad though. New teams, like guilds who pve and are like ‘ooh, lets do a tourny for fun’ will be sent crying by experienced premades.
Premade vs premade only makes it nearly impossible for teams that are newibish to learn how to play.
If they introduced voice chat into the game, the gap between premades and PUGs would shrink. Communication is the most important thing in this game and PUGs have no way of communicating.
If they introduced voice chat into the game, the gap between premades and PUGs would shrink. Communication is the most important thing in this game and PUGs have no way of communicating.
Skype is free.
Haven’t really seen that many guilded premades pug stomping the frees.
Other than DTC, JFK, AIM, DCed, Pro, Imtl, King, Zero, Team Paradigm Mexico, dLrm, Qz, Pz, OP, and maybe about six more that I can’t remember at the moment… the rest of the groups are just pugs.
(edited by mursie.3681)
bro are you serious? does anet pay you? you keep posting the same garbage over and over . my friends list went from 30 to 0 of pvp only players. why? because this game offers kitten for mid level players. the sooner you realize this the sooner you will stop posting this game is great nonsense.
tldr for the dense and blind. people dont want to have to spam tells to ranom people to be able to enjoy matchea with equally skilled players if they did the pvp population wouldnt be on the verge of death.
Ad hominem, like it’s THE way to discuss things.
Are you really calling me out on being positive? Bro are YOU serious?
Yes the game has it’s faults , No Anet does not pay me. Your opinions just don’t coincide with reality and therefore create a cognitive dissonance
“BUT PVP IS DEDZ Y DIS GUI HAZ FUNZ FLAME HIM”.
This forum is just filled with spiraling QQ all day, erry day it’s one QQer circle jerking the other QQers….boo-hoo this game is dying I’m going to post on the forums about it.
Game is fine; ques are fast, I can soloque/pug all day and still have enjoyable matches without winning everytime and sometimes getting stomped by a premade.
That’s too bad about your friends, people quit the game did you really expect all your friends to keep playing as long as you ? People have lives kitten to do, etc.
You refuse to move on, find new people to play with, that’s really great for you but that doesn’t mean the game is dying. My friends list has grown and grown.. a lot of people don’t play full time pvp, that’s not a bad thing, there’s more to this game then just pvp…
I really wish guildwars2 devs would release some stats on the population so we could stop having these discussions it’s either one way or the other.
Will the Real Pink Puma Please stand up?
This thread pops up quite frequently…. so my response may seem a little harsh but you don’t actually want a response you want people to agree with you, you should have put it into suggestions.
This is a team game, if you don’t want to play a team game you might want to start playing wuvwuv instead.
Yes a team is required if you want to win free-tournys consistently,
because the meta is tryhards..It’s very easy to get into a team, you send people tells they send you tells back, or you spam your 5-6 guilds “LF1M for tourny” .
QQing isn’t going to fix anything, go out and interact with people…
Let me sum up this post: “no one should ever pug because it’s a team game.”
If that were true, paids would be popping constantly and should be the only real game mode. After all, paids are team vs team. Wait, hold on—there are constant free tourneys filled with 7 pugs/1 premade. Paids come up once or twice every couple nights during prime time? Huh. Too bad everyone is doing it wrong. Well, while you wait for everyone to stop solo queueing, you could always queue for a paid.
People just want exciting matches. Those happen three ways—pug vs pug, premade vs premade, and pug vs bad premade.
You already have 5v5 solo que, in the Form of 5v5hotjoin, you just want a chest attached to it.
Don’t sum up things which are already coherently and simply written it’s foolish to do so.
“You need a team to win Consistently " + " It’s Easy To get a team"=
No one Should QQ about pugging and getting stomped by a premade.
Captain 20/20 hindsight says “If you didn’t want to lose to a premade, you shouldn’t have pugged”
What about the people who want to play with their friends?
Screw those people right? 2 or 4 guys who want to pug tournys aren’t of concern to you, if the pvp population is split between solo que and premade all you’ll end up getting is longer ques and a dispersed population and you’ll also make it harder on anyone who wants to que tournies with friends, because everyone is playing either TEAM v TEAM or SOLO vs SOLO.. no in betweens.
False, Paid tournys don’t pop over free tournys cause free tournys are free, no one is going to pug anything that has a loss associated with it. Shiiiiit,
Teams don’t que paids because it’s too much of a loss at their skill level..
If you decreased paid tourny pries to 1 ticket per person, I guaruntee paid tournies would pop all day.
Why would pugs do it ?
Save yo tickets, spend em on a good team is the prevalent mentality.
Will the Real Pink Puma Please stand up?
This is a team game, if you don’t want to play a team game you might want to start playing wuvwuv instead.
You obviously no nothing about wuvwuv at all.
Blackwater Vanguard
Yaks Bend
Yaks Bend
You already have 5v5 solo que, in the Form of 5v5hotjoin, you just want a chest attached to it.
Don’t sum up things which are already coherently and simply written it’s foolish to do so.
“You need a team to win Consistently " + " It’s Easy To get a team"=
No one Should QQ about pugging and getting stomped by a premade.
Actually, 5v5 hotjoin is usually 2v3.
I like summarizing things, even though it’s so foolish.
No one in this thread cares about winning consistently. If we did, we’d just get a premade. As you say, it’s not real hard. People in this thread are trying to think of ways to increase the playerbase by trying to make matches more exciting. Matches are more exciting when they’re decided by fewer than 300 points. Matches are decided by fewer than 300 points only if they are:
—premade vs premade
—pug vs pug
—pug vs bad premade
We’re just suggesting ways to make those close matches happen more consistently.
Right, and all I’m saying is, if solo que gets implemented I won’t be able to pug free tournaments with a friend or two, we’d always have to have a full team because no one would solo que team Free Tournaments, everyone would soloque Solo ques :/
team v team would basically be like paid.. for elite teams only, and paid would never pop ever.
I’m not saying your ideas are bad, they’re just really inconvenient to me personally and although I can’t speak for a majority I think some people like to duo/tri que and others like to que with meshwork teams.
Will the Real Pink Puma Please stand up?
They don’t need more tournament modes, they need less. This thing needs to get consolidated into just two. Hot join and Free. With hot-join getting reworked.
The great forum duppy.
If they introduced voice chat into the game, the gap between premades and PUGs would shrink. Communication is the most important thing in this game and PUGs have no way of communicating.
Skype is free.
You shouldn’t have to go out of your way to set up a feature that every other game has built in. The entire point of a PICKUP GAME is to just pick it up and play, not to go through a 10 minute process exchanging skype addresses with random people and making sure that everyone is coordinated.
You shouldn’t be forced to be in a pre-made team in order to enjoy the game. Some people just prefer to solo queue and that’s perfectly fine, just how others will only play with friends. There is a reason why solo/duo queue is so popular in LoL. Hell, even Random Arenas were the most popular PvP mode in GW1, you’d think ArenaNet would’ve learned from that. The bad news for solo players is that ArenaNet doesn’t plan to change this in the near feature, if ever. Their matchmaking system will still match pugs vs pre mades (as stated by Jonathan Sharp himself in the first episode of State of the game), so tough luck for you guys.
The idea that the 5vs5 hotjoin mode is like a tournament mode for solo queuers is just laughable. Have you even played that mode? Due to the nature of hotjoins it usually falls to 2vs4, 3vs2 etc etc after about 3-5 mins.
Solo queue is extremely important and a proper implementation will help the PvP population to grow a lot and be enjoyed by a wider variety of people. Sadly, the developers at ArenaNet are being stubborn and will continue to torture the solo players even after the matchmaking system is implemented.
It’s their loss. Nobody will be playing this game anymore within a few months if they don’t implement a solo queue.
Right, and all I’m saying is, if solo que gets implemented I won’t be able to pug free tournaments with a friend or two, we’d always have to have a full team because no one would solo que team Free Tournaments, everyone would soloque Solo ques :/
team v team would basically be like paid.. for elite teams only, and paid would never pop ever.
Add MMR to individuals, rate teams based on their total score, then pair them up in tourneys.
You can have your partial team plus 2 randoms and still have a balanced, and therefore a generally more entertaining, match when the game selects a team of equivalent rating. This isn’t about banning players with a couple friends from playing in tourneys. It’s about stopping the full pre-mades from roflstomping you and your 2 friends because the other 2 teammates don’t have much experience or aren’t on skype/mumbler/vent/ts with you.
How ANet decided to create an “E-Sport” game and no regulation as to who competes against who is beyond me.
Imagine if the New York Yankees were allowed to join championships in Little League baseball? And these pros beat down the kids and got rewarded for it? Unacceptable right? Thats why they are seperated into Major League and Little League baseball. A kid grows and becomes a great ballplayer, he gets pushed up to the majors. That’s what it should be here as well, but it isn’t.
You play 1 match against another group of randoms. Round 2 for most teams ends up being another match against slightly better randoms. Fine so far. Close match ups. Round 3 you are now up against a pre-made who has been winning all day and probably there because they ran out of paid tourney tickets. You just lost 100-500. GG now go repeat the cycle.
(edited by Jonny.9370)
Right, and all I’m saying is, if solo que gets implemented I won’t be able to pug free tournaments with a friend or two, we’d always have to have a full team because no one would solo que team Free Tournaments, everyone would soloque Solo ques :/
team v team would basically be like paid.. for elite teams only, and paid would never pop ever.I’m not saying your ideas are bad, they’re just really inconvenient to me personally and although I can’t speak for a majority I think some people like to duo/tri que and others like to que with meshwork teams.
why wont you? every other pvp game worth a crap has solo/duo queue system. what people are asking for is a solo/duo queue system for tournament (or ideally scrap the stupid tournament mode and go single match with match making / ranking) If its you and a friend you join the solo/duo tournament mode. if it’s you + 2 friends you join the premade tournament mode. That’s how other games do it. The problem with GW2 is the casual population is horribly low that unless they just drop the tournament system and switch to single match they are going to have problems.
since you seem to be new to pvp games ill break it down for you. this is how they should have done it from the start.
hot join (leave as is
solo/duo queue – single match, 5v5, matches teams based on rank
premade queue – single match, 5v5, matches team based on rank
tournament – at end of week/month/year/etc teams ranked top X get placed into tournament. winner gets reward. they can then expand upon that and create multiple tournaments with lesser rewards for the lower tier players. like gold tournament, silver tournament, bronze tournament, etc.
if paids arent popping teams that normally do paid are doing frees and facing pugs many matches, that should never happen, ever in any pvp game.
Sprawl – Necro – Eredon Terrace
(edited by Sprawl.3891)
I LOVE the PvP in this game…but the zerg state that hotjoin is in and getting roflstomped by premades in free tourneys has finally gotten me to the point that I’m done. I’ll go back to PvE and WvW. I’m fine with losing a fun close match, but when you lose 500 to 130 and see the rank at the end of the game and everyone in your group is 5-15 and then the other group is all over r40 it just pisses me off. What got into their heads to think that having that large of a disparity between ranks in a single PvP match is ok, I have no clue. I hope that everyone but a few leave PvP in this game just like in gw1 so that maybe it will get through their heads that THEY ARE DOING SOMETHING WRONG. Oh well I had some fun, but I guess PvP isn’t meant for casuals in A-nets minds. Also this “E-sport” bs is laughable. Have fun all.
Pinnacle of Responsibility[Mom]-Yaks Bend
Unstable Shield, Unstable Light
Unstable Shield, Unstable Light
Resume: Split tPvP in:
-Free tournament (only solo, mabye duo qeue)
-Free tournament (only premades)
-Paid tournament (only premades)
For a faster fix plan B:
Reduce entry fee for paids to 3 and lower rewards. Would be lot easier for not hardcore players to participate more often and not have to stomp randoms in free’s to get tickets.
Read It Backwards [BooN]
Maybe this thread isn’t for me, but I can tell you my experiences in trying to learn PVP have been pretty bad in this game. My wife and I started playing casually at release due to having too much going on in life to devote as much time as we would like to playing GW2. Around Christmas time we decided we wanted to get into sPVP and found out that when we join the normal games we cannot be on the same team. It gets even worse when my brother and his wife log in and the four of us want to play on the same team. While it is fun to play against each other from time to time, we would much rather play on the same team. The only way we can do this is to play in the tournaments.
In joining the tournaments we seem to be against teams of rank 25-45 with 3-5 players with the same guild tag. These teams tend to stomp on us big time. Some of these teams troll us in /map chat, /say, or in emotes each time we are stomped upon because our guild must horribly suck at PVP to have 2-4 of us on a team and not be able to take these guys down. To be honest, we are not very good, and we are not getting much better. To play on the same team as my wife, we tend to play tournaments about 1/2 to 2/3 of the time. My win ratio is around 35% and I would guess about half of the wins are from tournaments and half from the standard PVP. We have never once gotten into a PVP match where we were so dominant that we won by a large margin, but we have been in many, many matches where we have lost by 300+ points and 1 where we were completely skunked losing 500 to 0.
Over the weekend we talked about it and we are all fed up with PVP because we very rarely find a close match up. We are on the verge of quitting PVP entirely. Now maybe you say, “No big loss, they are terrible anyway.” But I say, I doubt we are a singularity. I bet there are quite a few people in my boat. In my opinion matchmaking in free tournaments is the single most important thing the developers could add to improve the experience new players can have in PVP. To accomplish this maybe they need to change free tournaments to 1 or 2 rounds. Maybe the wait time on free tournaments increases slightly. Or maybe they make it “smart” to where there is some sort of algorithm that factors in time waited for a tournament to start and how many players have signed up and sets it up to go 1, 2, or 3 rounds so that no one is waiting too long and the rewards vary upon how many teams enter. Personally I don’t care how it is accomplished; it’s not my job to solve this problem. As a consumer of this product who wishes it to be a better product, it is simply my job to voice my discontent with it.
I would also like to note that paid tournaments feedback should be taken from the very good teams. The paid tournaments, in my opinion, are for those who are skilled (or think they are skilled) at this game and want to compete at the next level. I wouldn’t think matchmaking should be a part of paid tournaments.
TL;DR: Add matchmaking to free tournaments to allow small groups of friends a way to PVP on the same team against similarly skilled teams. Add an algorithm that factors in time waited for a free tournament to start and how many players have signed up and sets it up to go 1, 2, or 3 rounds so that no one is waiting too long and the rewards vary upon how many teams enter.
And fix the glory distribution. This creates a certain mentality that carries over from hotjoin to free tpvp.
Razor xxxx (Desolation ; Off)
Bring back: ‘Gamer’ title + MAT’s!
Throw out: Hotjoin!
Bring back: ‘Gamer’ title + MAT’s!
Throw out: Hotjoin!
Maybe this thread isn’t for me, but I can tell you my experiences in trying to learn PVP have been pretty bad in this game. My wife and I started playing casually at release due to having too much going on in life to devote as much time as we would like to playing GW2. Around Christmas time we decided we wanted to get into sPVP and found out that when we join the normal games we cannot be on the same team. It gets even worse when my brother and his wife log in and the four of us want to play on the same team. While it is fun to play against each other from time to time, we would much rather play on the same team. The only way we can do this is to play in the tournaments.
In joining the tournaments we seem to be against teams of rank 25-45 with 3-5 players with the same guild tag. These teams tend to stomp on us big time. Some of these teams troll us in /map chat, /say, or in emotes each time we are stomped upon because our guild must horribly suck at PVP to have 2-4 of us on a team and not be able to take these guys down. To be honest, we are not very good, and we are not getting much better. To play on the same team as my wife, we tend to play tournaments about 1/2 to 2/3 of the time. My win ratio is around 35% and I would guess about half of the wins are from tournaments and half from the standard PVP. We have never once gotten into a PVP match where we were so dominant that we won by a large margin, but we have been in many, many matches where we have lost by 300+ points and 1 where we were completely skunked losing 500 to 0.
Over the weekend we talked about it and we are all fed up with PVP because we very rarely find a close match up. We are on the verge of quitting PVP entirely. Now maybe you say, “No big loss, they are terrible anyway.” But I say, I doubt we are a singularity. I bet there are quite a few people in my boat. In my opinion matchmaking in free tournaments is the single most important thing the developers could add to improve the experience new players can have in PVP. To accomplish this maybe they need to change free tournaments to 1 or 2 rounds. Maybe the wait time on free tournaments increases slightly. Or maybe they make it “smart” to where there is some sort of algorithm that factors in time waited for a tournament to start and how many players have signed up and sets it up to go 1, 2, or 3 rounds so that no one is waiting too long and the rewards vary upon how many teams enter. Personally I don’t care how it is accomplished; it’s not my job to solve this problem. As a consumer of this product who wishes it to be a better product, it is simply my job to voice my discontent with it.
I would also like to note that paid tournaments feedback should be taken from the very good teams. The paid tournaments, in my opinion, are for those who are skilled (or think they are skilled) at this game and want to compete at the next level. I wouldn’t think matchmaking should be a part of paid tournaments.
TL;DR: Add matchmaking to free tournaments to allow small groups of friends a way to PVP on the same team against similarly skilled teams. Add an algorithm that factors in time waited for a free tournament to start and how many players have signed up and sets it up to go 1, 2, or 3 rounds so that no one is waiting too long and the rewards vary upon how many teams enter.
That pretty much sums it up.
In unrelated news, is there an option to disable map chat?