Matchmaking

Mercenary Center Developer Blog
41

So you feel that simply because some people are able to communicate and work together as an effective team, they should be punished or held back because of it? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of a team-based game entirely?

It’s not about the matchmaker giving people slack, but about giving them the exact same opportunity and chance as everyone else. Think of it - do they purposefully nerf the weapons of pro players in counterstrike or similar competitive games? Do they match teams using teamspeak in League of Legends against even higher level/elo teams just to compensate? No.

Good teamwork and organisation are things a game should never punish you for. Everyone has the same opportunities and just because someone else chooses not to play as a team at a semi professional level, doesn’t mean that those who do should be punished for it. So you have less chance of winning against such teams, isn’t that kind of logical? With a sufficient player base and good match maker, you’d rarely encounter those kind of squads anyway - and when you do, you’re on their side half of the time.

So really, it’s an aspect I don’t understand. If anything, it’s the players who feel that such squads SHOULD be punished who are being selfish. They want the same chance to win (through artificial means of punishing their opponents) despite having less teamwork, less effort, less organisation and less skill. How is that fair in what’s meant to be a competitive environment?

In my opinion, the only method at a player’s disposal for increasing their chances to win, should be to practice and get better at the game. Ya know, like any other competitive game and/or sport…

I’m not saying anything like that. But you know how indie pilots work. “If at first you don’t succeed, ping everything.” Eventually, this works and the aces start flying against you and a T3 squad has about 20% chances of fighting any T5 scrub. “Oh, but that’s fine…”

 

And this is where I’m fenced with the system. I don’t mind a challenge, but there is a limit to what your skills can provide you with limited gear. Because we’re not fighting T5 pilots with Mk1 gear, no. Most of them actually DO have purple gear all over the ship except the weapons, in order to abuse the MM as much as possible. So there’s no way of beating this system for experienced pilots. You just die.

 

Care to take a wild guess at what happens to casual pilots that decide to squad up in a 4-man team?

42

My response wasn’t aimed at you, Ory. :slight_smile:

43

I’m not saying anything like that. But you know how indie pilots work. “If at first you don’t succeed, ping everything.” Eventually, this works and the aces start flying against you and a T3 squad has about 20% chances of fighting any T5 scrub. “Oh, but that’s fine…”

 

And this is where I’m fenced with the system. I don’t mind a challenge, but there is a limit to what your skills can provide you with limited gear.

 

So MM should take into consideration your skill too, not only your gear. This game is pretty gear heavy, and you can change it very fast, so your skill is not everything, but should be included in the MM process. Is it not? If it is, and it gives you matches that take you around 1.0 win/loss than good. If not, its bad.

44

This game is funny in that way, that  it shouldn’t try to do MM according to gear; it is way way too tricky to count it in:

 

The difference between MK2 to MK4 is extremely minimal, no use to consider that. The real difference in gear comes from the smartness of the gear you have selected. How on the earth anyone could create algorithm that considers such factor in? There are modules that you should have in certain role ships, and certain modules you should not have instead of them (unless that ship has enough  extra slots of that type)! The gear itself matters more than the level of the gear.

 

Thus, gear related MM is useless as it cannot compare smartness of the chosen modules for the chosen ships. No amount of MK4 can save you, if you have build your ship with silly modules. Only thing that I would have the MM do is to consider if you have all MK1 gear, give -1 or -2 to the MM value. Anything above MK2+, don’t count anything extra to the MM.

 

 

Especially as gear and modules are already counted in wins as they likely affect the wins : if you have good modules, you win more. If you build MM, that counts your wins and then increases your MM value accordingly, you can consider that the modules / gears effect is already inside those wins as those helped you to achieve that win! Anything else sounds redundant as it would be doing it double:

  • gear helps you win and winning already increases your MM value

  • if again in addition to that your gear increases your MM value, you are double taxed.

  • Also it doesn’t consider situation where your gear is badly selected and doesn’t give you wins but losses: you are penalized even more, even though the losses are giving you MM value reduction, the poorly selected (but still MK4 level gear) keeps on penalizing you.

 

 

MM should not consider gear in this game after MK1. (as example, in World of Tanks it should  consider, as there you can determine better builds / better gear, as there aren’t that many modules to choose form for each individual tank, and the difference of the modules is BIG). This game has way too many module/gear options, that it is not easy to say what is good and what is bad gear/module for each given ship. And the difference of the modules is small.

45

ok here a my 2 cents about mm from the view of a random player who is not in a corp. This mm is completely unbalanced, so if i am lucky i come to the overwhelming winning team or i end up as a slaugter cattle. Most of the time i am in the loosing team. Maybe i dont understand the mm system like the guys above me, only thing i know is now: loosing, loosing loosing…

46

ok here a my 2 cents about mm from the view of a random player who is not in a corp. This mm is complete unbalanced, so if i am lucky i come to the overwhelming winning team or i end up as a slaugter cattle. Most of the time i am in the loosing team. Maybe i dont understand the mm system like the guys above me, only thing i know is now: loosing, loosing loosing…

That’s right, I’m still seeing most of the matches having one team with everyone having a Skill Rating UNDER 1000, while the other team has everyone Skill Rating OVER 1200. Also, is getting real common to find teammates with 1 T3 and 2 T1, 1 T4 and 2 T2 and things like that. It would be nice to make a “lineup restriction” to avoid this, since in the “Capture the Beacon Realistic” is really bad to see that in only 1 minute you already are 4 players behind because they died like flies to 1 desintegrator/torpedo.

47

That’s a tier rushing issue for MM.  Tier rushers can get a DSR of whatever, but never learn the skill of the game.

48

Not enough people are trying enough to squad up, that is why you are losing when you are trying to win the games by soloing. The latest MM will try to artificially form your win ratio to a neutral 1.0. 

 

But now this has become a paradox as to how unorthodox the MM system has become, because squadding should up your chances, but it actually does not anymore, and there really isn’t anything anymore you can do at all, the game will always force the same tough chances on you and you will be right back where you started.

 

When I started playing the game, it was different. Perspective pilots that had dedication, skill and willingness to work with other people and be really competitive had a place in this game. I started squadding up the first day with my friends, and joined a corp in the next week. Been flying with squads in TS ever since, almost never soloing queuing, because I didn’t really see the point. The fun for me in the game was in what I saw in the intro video (remember that one, guys?), the ships aligning in a coordinated formation for an attack. This is the whole point in the game for me. I want to do this together with people, I do not see it as a solo game. It is a multiplayer for a reason, and for most of us it is human nature to collaborate with other people to achieve a common goal, and having a sense of being a part of something greater, instead of doing everything individualistically, thus taking into account the self-actualizer values according to Maslow’s needs system, as a form of metamotivation.

 

But they have taken that feeling away now. Squadding is now punishing, having better ships is punishing, and having a win streak feels punishing. Everything is so focused on trying to be “fair” it is not fun anymore, it feels demotivating, whatever you do, and makes no sense of doing it anymore, because you are artificially constrained by an inanimate, caged system. And nobody likes to be constrained like that. You cannot feel you can breathe, and it is not fun.

 

Gone are the days of 20 win streaks and more.  It is frustrating even for us veterans, but we can somehow deal with it, I cannot imagine how it must be for the new players, when they try squadding up to raise their chances and they see they get matched against stronger opponents. For everything you do to try and improve, you will get “rewarded” with even tougher opposition. Nothing you do and progress feels rewarding. It’s contradictorily, unreasonable, and completely demotivating to progress further. 

 

I have my personal  opinion as to what should be done to the brilliant person that designed this system, but I will keep it to myself, because it might not be appropriate to write it here.

49

That’s right, I’m still seeing most of the matches having one team with everyone having a Skill Rating UNDER 1000, while the other team has everyone Skill Rating OVER 1200. Also, is getting real common to find teammates with 1 T3 and 2 T1, 1 T4 and 2 T2 and things like that. It would be nice to make a “lineup restriction” to avoid this, since in the “Capture the Beacon Realistic” is really bad to see that in only 1 minute you already are 4 players behind because they died like flies to 1 desintegrator/torpedo.

 

True, or the classic one: with just one ship in t4, and thats a lrf

 

It is also true, that to squad up should be the best way to win the match and to have fun. But because of this matchmaking, i left my corp, i thought i never come back to this game. But somehow i find this game still fascinating, and i play it again. But i am not sure if i stay, because this mm realy demotivates me.

50

I have my personal  opinion as to what should be done to the brilliant person that designed this system, but I will keep it to myself, because it might not be appropriate to write it here.

They’d just delete the entire post…

51

Classic symptoms of modern game design really; gamers shouldn’t have to work for rewards. Losing a lot? In the old days you had to become a better player. Now it’s the job of the dev team to make the game go easy on you and give you wins you don’t deserve.

I really hope they see sense and fix this.

52

Before gaming was reserved for hardcore gamers as well. and was seen as a sin by “normal” people. 

Games are now made to attract almost all people. sometimes you fight with good people, sometimes with better than you, sometimes worse. That’s what a mmo is.

 

if new players have a bad win ratio, they won’t stay in the game and the game will die. This game should find a way to reward good players that’s right, but not at the expense of the others.

53

if new players have a bad win ratio, they won’t stay in the game and the game will die. This game should find a way to reward good players that’s right, but not at the expense of the others.

 

If new players have a bad win ratio, they need be encouraged to learn and get better, we already give them the same credit reward as the winning team.

 

By making the game easier, you are not forcing them to develop skill and tactics and are actually punishing them as when they progress, they no longer can not get the easy kills they got in t1/2.

 

 

54

The goal should be to reward good players without having new players being crushed. A game should be enjoyable even if you’re not a good player.

Of course it also should reward you more if you’re a good player.

Some players don’t want to spend hours in tactics/skill enhancements etc… Some players plays only 1 hours maybe less per day. And those do also want to evolve, not being kept in T1/T2.

55

Some players don’t want to spend hours in tactics/skill enhancements etc… Some players plays only 1 hours maybe less per day. And those do also want to evolve, not being kept in T1/T2.

 

By tactis & skill i mean:

  • know how to use engi modules
  • not flying straight into a swarm of enemy and feed
  • not using a long range when you are the captain
  • not rushing to a beacon in beacon hunt when it have 10 secs left

Seriously, those things are absolutly basic, but the game is in a state that it is so easy that even in t3 there is a disturbing amount of players that havnt learn those four simple points…

56

I have seen pilots in T4 that don’t know how to use tackler modules.

57

Im a casual gamer, i used to lose plenty. I learned to play better. Matchmaking should NOT coddle us

58

Some players don’t want to spend hours in tactics/skill enhancements etc… Some players plays only 1 hours maybe less per day. And those do also want to evolve, not being kept in T1/T2.

Put simply, tough.

This game has tiers for a reason - so low skill players are safe from the predations of the killer elite. If you are complaining about being “forced” to fly T1 or T2, then there are only two possible explanations; that you haven’t played enough to unlock T3 ships, or you aren’t good enough to fly them.

There is no need to cater to either of these issues. Unlocking takes time, but that time is meant to be spent perfecting your skills. Unless you are top of the scoreboard in every T2 match you fly in even if using R4 ships, you shouldn’t be complaining about progress lock. As to the latter, demanding everyone else be nerfed because you cannot, or will not improve is grossly selfish and should NOT be catered for.

I continued to fly in T2 long after the game’s progression system thought I should be flying T3. This was primarily due to the crappy entry-level Tech of R7, but mainly because my solo piloting skills weren’t up to scratch. It wasn’t until I’d joined a Corp and been taught about how to fly, how to equip my ships and what implants to use did I start soloing in T3. Even then, I only did so infrequently.

Thus, my answer to complaining new players is always the same; tech up, skill up or shut up. Matchmaking will already hold your hand when you first journey into T3, so as long as you put the effort in and grind loyalty you can overcome the tech gap and get your blue R8/R9. Skill is down to you. If you don’t have it, and won’t work to earn it, T3 (and up) is not for you.

59

If you have time and play sometimes, without getting full time on it, eventually you’ll reach T3, T4 even T5 after a long while. Almost all my T2 ships are elites. I do know the basics (no suicide, no flying straight, don’t cap beacon which have less than 10sec left), but my skills are still low. (I mean aiming, evasive manoeuvers, implants and so on) that means I should play T2/T3 forever ? Or that I should quit because there is no further evolution other than playing full time ? 

 

In other games (I’ll quote bf3) I played a lot of time but bit by bit. I also have a low skill in this game but a very high rank. No problem there are other low skill high rank players or even medium skill medium rank which are the same “level” as me, And no one complains.

 

I agree that for this system to work in SC there must be a lot bigger playerbase. but the current MM (tweaked for lesser tech disparity) does what it need to put a challenge to all players according to what they’re worth.

60

Average value of full matchmaker rating is calculated for the squad. If a pilot’s full rating is lower than the average squad rating, this pilot’s rating is not taken into consideration when calculating the full squad rating.

 

Thus, there is no way to artificially lower a squad’s rating by accepting weaker pilots on lower-ranked ships…

Jesus.  Seriously?  That just SOUNDS like you’re trying to screw whoever that “weaker pilot” is…

 

I mean, who wants to play in a squad with better people anyways, amirite?  Imo, it’s just stupid to think that you’ll get a better match by disregarding the fact that there MIGHT be a pilot in a squad that’s not as good as the rest of the squad.  So yeah, go ahead and throw that 4 person squad with 3 good players and 1 bad player into a match!  Make that squad fail because that fourth person can’t even live long enough to help out his comrades, and there ya go.  A lost match.  So if the MM saw this and knew it, then wow.  More power to you for calculating out the progression of that battle…but my guess is that it doesn’t work THAT well.