Star Conflict OBT v.0.9.8 Discussion

Mercenary Center Patch Discussion
381

I must say that squad change is the only real positive in the patch for me. The basic rule of balanced matchmaking is that players should have 0.5 (50/50, shown in-game as win loss ratio of 1) win ratio if matchmaking works. Before squadding up with good players gave you guaranteed win ratio of something between 0.7 and 0.9 easily. In some cases, it went even higher, approaching 1. It was broken.

 

 

Many games do the same thing this change incorporated in SC: if they allow squads to be matchmade with randoms, they match them significantly higher than they otherwise would if they joined solo. A good example of this is LoL, which allows pairs to queue into solo queue, but assigns a significantly inflated MMR if you queue as a pair as opposed to queuing solo. And it works exceptionally well. In fact, at lower tiers of LoL where I mess around, it could be said it overcompensates, because I’ve observed that most duos are significantly worse than other three players ending up being the weak link regardless of their improved teamwork.

But overall the system function well to balance it out and allow pairs to queue with solo players in a balanced fashion.

 

Frankly, reading many posts here, I’m getting a feeling that most people are too used to broken squad MMR from before which granted them extremely skewed win/loss ratio, and now that their win ratio in squad is far closer to that magical 0.5, it causes whining. Not because it’s a bad thing, but because people are used to free lunch that was old, broken squad MMR and they want it and their free wins back. It’s basic human attitude towards something they had for a long time, something they have grown to feel they’re entitled to even though it breaks the game for those queuing solo.

 

Reality is, the current MMR system is well tested and proven far superior to blind MMR system we had before, a fact proven by myriad of competitive games over more than a decade. It does need some tweaking to get actual needed increase in rating based on squad skill, but it’s far, FAR better than giving squads a free win card by blindly matching them with same tier randoms.

 

 

 

Right now, about the only thing devs may wish to consider is to perhaps offset the impact on people who want their free lunch back by increasing rewards for squadded players to match the rank they’re matchmade to. I.e. give them increased rewards for the inflated MMR.

Usually I would’ve agreed with you but in LoL character that costs 450 (tier 1) can easily beat character that costs 6300 (tier last). There are not so extreme differences like T3 vs T5 ships.

 

I easily beat Let’s say Ahri with Annie mid or Beat Darius with Garen and then turn the tides of the game.  

Not because of character’s stats, but purely skill and item build.

 

Here T3 have the item amount  disadvantage, (More passive slots)

the (let’s compare to Masteries) Implants disadvantage,

ship stats disadvantage

and now with the last patch - tier disadvantage (T3 weapons and mods have few % lesser stats than T4, which have less than T5).

 

And we can not talk for “Skilled T3” and “Unskilled T5”. If one grind to T5 he has some skill and knows at least how to fly to a certain point.

382

Lower tier squads have already solved this problem- they’re gone.  I just spent a couple hours fighting solo in Low T4-T3, and I saw a lot of other solo players, a few possible T3 duos, and one possible trio of T3, but not a single four man squad.  If the MM works for lower tiers the same way as it does for upper, I should have seen some four man T2 squads, but I didn’t see any at all.

 

According to the Antibus 4 man squads pushed up by 1-2 tiers suppose to meet worst of the worst from that tier, if it does work, there were enough people online below you in ratings to fill in for these 4 mans

383

This is absolutely correct, if you were matched with a T5 ‘killsquad’, do inform us of this.

Just a question on this, if killsquad goes on a losing streak because they ignore objectives and lose the match, will they be placed in the standard queue?

 

Are piercing missiles for T2 fighters discontinued?

Those were eliminated long ago unless you already had them.  Until this patch, you could autoreplenish and keep getting them even though you couldn’t buy them in the warehouse.  I still have one set.  They were removed from T2 to make it simpler.

 

I must say that squad change is the only real positive in the patch for me. The basic rule of balanced matchmaking is that players should have 0.5 (50/50, shown in-game as win loss ratio of 1) win ratio if matchmaking works. Before squadding up with good players gave you guaranteed win ratio of something between 0.7 and 0.9 easily. In some cases, it went even higher, approaching 1. It was broken.

 

 

Many games do the same thing this change incorporated in SC: if they allow squads to be matchmade with randoms, they match them significantly higher than they otherwise would if they joined solo. A good example of this is LoL, which allows pairs to queue into solo queue, but assigns a significantly inflated MMR if you queue as a pair as opposed to queuing solo. And it works exceptionally well. In fact, at lower tiers of LoL where I mess around, it could be said it overcompensates, because I’ve observed that most duos are significantly worse than other three players ending up being the weak link regardless of their improved teamwork.

But overall the system function well to balance it out and allow pairs to queue with solo players in a balanced fashion.

 

Frankly, reading many posts here, I’m getting a feeling that most people are too used to broken squad MMR from before which granted them extremely skewed win/loss ratio, and now that their win ratio in squad is far closer to that magical 0.5, it causes whining. Not because it’s a bad thing, but because people are used to free lunch that was old, broken squad MMR and they want it and their free wins back. It’s basic human attitude towards something they had for a long time, something they have grown to feel they’re entitled to even though it breaks the game for those queuing solo.

 

Reality is, the current MMR system is well tested and proven far superior to blind MMR system we had before, a fact proven by myriad of competitive games over more than a decade. It does need some tweaking to get actual needed increase in rating based on squad skill, but it’s far, FAR better than giving squads a free win card by blindly matching them with same tier randoms.

 

 

 

Right now, about the only thing devs may wish to consider is to perhaps offset the impact on people who want their free lunch back by increasing rewards for squadded players to match the rank they’re matchmade to. I.e. give them increased rewards for the inflated MMR.

I agree.

 

It probably will be modified some over time.  T2 squads probably shouldn’t go to T4, and T1 squads should never go to T3.  But right now T3 and T4 are mixed, so T5 is the next step up.

 

Maybe a change would be to give those T3 players access to the T4 and T5 implants while in a squad.  Unfortunately, that couldn’t work for T3 players who’ve yet to access T4 and T5.

384

Lower tier squads have already solved this problem- they’re gone.  I just spent a couple hours fighting solo in Low T4-T3, and I saw a lot of other solo players, a few possible T3 duos, and one possible trio of T3, but not a single four man squad.  If the MM works for lower tiers the same way as it does for upper, I should have seen some four man T2 squads, but I didn’t see any at all.

 

 

I’m not terribly familiar with LoL, but as I understand it their MM only inflated a team’s rating.  Our MM doesn’t inflate ratings- it provides the non-squadded players with a multitude of damage bonuses, extra abilities, extra health, and other statistical advantages from the higher rank of their ships.  Our system may also bring around a 50/50 win/loss record for squads, but it’s not doing it by finding better players.  It just awards statistical bonuses to the non-squadded.

 

It undermines an even more basic tenet of game design: Everyone must play by the same rules.  Was my squad’s loss due to the pick-up team managing to pull together superior teamwork, or was it just flat-out better ships?  _ Even worse _, was my victory over the other team’s squad due to my guys clicking and laying down the crossfire, or a result of the implant and module variety that the squadded people can’t hope to ever match?  The victories are hollow and the losses unfair.  Against those of equal rank, victory feels earned and defeat deserved.  I may just stop playing in a PvP squad until this very serious problem is addressed, because playing against other people of the same rank feels more rewarding- even when I lose.

 

We may have gotten back four man PvP squads, but all the fun and enjoyment I used to get from being in one is gone.  See ya’ll in the solo queue!

You appear to fundamentally misunderstand how MMR works. In this game, higher MMR pushes you into higher tiers where you’re either matchmade against bad players with much better ships, or equivalent skill solo players with better ships, or bad players in better ships that are squadded, or finally equivalent players with equivalent skill and equivalent ships that are squadded.

 

This is because game considers a sum of several factors in its matchmaking now:

  1. Power of teamwork.

  2. Power of ships.

  3. Skill of player based on recent success history.

 

Squads have massively inflated 1. in comparison to others. As a result, game either massively inflates one of other factors, or moderately inflates both other factors to counteract it and allow for more even games. Before this was done, squads rolled over entire teams because of 1.

 

There is nothing wrong with new matchmaking other than tweaks for more accurate balance. Game compensates for your overpowering teamwork capability by giving enemies higher tier ships that are more powerful, so they can counteract your teamwork. The only other way to increase opponent’s power would be to look for another squad only, or to look for people with much higher skill and same gear. Former will increase queues to hilarious amounts with current concurrent online player amounts, while latter will cause you even more tears as many folks can testify. I could solo push some 3 man NASA squads into stalemates and even losses because my skill was overpowering their teamwork. Rekombo27 once almost won a game solo again me and a squadmate of mine because he was just that damn good. And of course, you’d still be faced with hilarious queues in addition to these players being forced to endure the same queue with you as matchmaker gather them all to oppose your squad.

 

Effectively the developers have a major problem in the fact that game has far too few players online for meaningful and balanced matchmaking, so they are implementing suboptimal systems to ensure that matches are made in reasonable time with limited player pool we have. Solution currently implemented is about the only way to balance squads in such a game without massively inflating queue times by separating people into completely different matchmaking systems (i.e. squad vs squad only as a separate matchmaking system).

 

 

Frankly, your last line strongly suggests that what you enjoyed about squadding up is free wins granted by overpowering teamwork. That means you had fun because matchmaking was inherently unfair and skewed in your favor and now that matchmaking is much more fair, you’re asking for it to favor your again. All I can suggest is trying to look for fun in fights that have become far more fair in terms of matchmaking.

385

It probably will be modified some over time.  T2 squads probably shouldn’t go to T4, and T1 squads should never go to T3.  But right now T3 and T4 are mixed, so T5 is the next step up.

 

Maybe a change would be to give those T3 players access to the T4 and T5 implants while in a squad.  Unfortunately, that couldn’t work for T3 players who’ve yet to access T4 and T5.

As noted, the new balancer needs fine tuning, and fine tuning needs significant statistical confidence in its own numbers first. Which need to be gathered. I.e. to check how far current squads are from 0.5 win ratio, and adjust accordingly until they are as close to 0.5 as possible.

386

Usually I would’ve agreed with you but in LoL character that costs 450 (tier 1) can easily beat character that costs 6300 (tier last). There are not so extreme differences like T3 vs T5 ships.

LoL considers each account’s win history only (ELO). However in LoL, skill functions as the complete power ratio. In our game, power ratio is determined by combination of skill and ships used. In addition both games now factor in the additional power brought to the equation by teamwork.

 

Once you consider that the only difference is that we have two numbers instead of LoL’s one number, and that they are both taken into account by matchmaker, the case becomes the same. After all, it’s pretty irrelevant to matchmaking that guard currently beats everything, gunship beats an ECM, command ship beats an engineer and covert ops beats command ship. Instead we simply have a number for skill (recents wins/losses in our game) and tier (power that this skill can wield). In LoL we have a number for skill, while power that you can wield is a constant rather than variable and therefore falls out of the equation as every single player has the same number in their MMR equation.

 

As a result, matchmaker systems are directly comparable. The only difference is the amount of factors considered for balancing to account for aforementioned extra factor in player’s total capability, the balancing process itself is similar.

 

This can be effectively expressed as a mathematical equation in following matter:

LoL: Skill + Teamwork = matchmaking rating.

SC: Skill + Ship power level + Teamwork= matchmaking rating.

 

And this gives devs an ability to attach specific weighting to each of these numbers based on their importance. I.e. you can attach a multiplier of 1.5 to ship power and 0.5 to teamwork and 1 to skill if you find that ship power is more important than previously thought, while teamwork less so, while skill factor is weighted correctly (the current argument of many).

 

Personally I doubt it, and still think that this is about people not wanting to accept that they have fair matchmaking without their massively overinflated win ratios. It’s basically weaning pains as people are weaned off their “squad up for easy wins” mentality.

387

Guess how many players are back to guard since the recent buff. They are useless now. 

Actually my Anaconda-M guard has less survival now than before the patch, not in therms of numbers which are the same but in real survival time. Same goes for my Crusader, but my Engi and Commands are doing much much better than last patch. And yes LRF torps still passes through as Missile Shield only kills 2 and then goes off and have a little cooldown time.

 

Wid.

388

LoL considers each account’s win history only (ELO). However in LoL, skill functions as the complete power ratio. In our game, power ratio is determined by combination of skill and ships used. In addition both games now factor in the additional power brought to the equation by teamwork.

 

Once you consider that the only difference is that we have two numbers instead of LoL’s one number, and that they are both taken into account by matchmaker, the case becomes the same. After all, it’s pretty irrelevant to matchmaking that guard currently beats everything, gunship beats an ECM, command ship beats an engineer and covert ops beats command ship. Instead we simply have a number for skill (recents wins/losses in our game) and tier (power that this skill can wield). In LoL we have a number for skill, while power that you can wield is a constant rather than variable and therefore falls out of the equation as every single player has the same number in their MMR equation.

 

As a result, matchmaker systems are directly comparable. The only difference is the amount of factors considered for balancing to account for aforementioned extra factor in player’s total capability, the balancing process itself is similar.

 

This can be effectively expressed as a mathematical equation in following matter:

LoL: Skill + Teamwork = matchmaking rating.

SC: Skill + Ship power level + Teamwork= matchmaking rating.

 

And this gives devs an ability to attach specific weighting to each of these numbers based on their importance. I.e. you can attach a multiplier of 1.5 to ship power and 0.5 to teamwork and 1 to skill if you find that ship power is more important than previously thought, while teamwork less so, while skill factor is weighted correctly (the current argument of many).

 

Personally I doubt it, and still think that this is about people not wanting to accept that they have fair matchmaking without their massively overinflated win ratios. It’s basically weaning pains as people are weaned off their “squad up for easy wins” mentality.

 

I have fair games in therms of enemies I’m facing, but really poor in therms of my own team when I’m not on squad. Dunno, maybe just a bad streak, maybe not.

Anyway tiers get mixed much more now when you are on a squad and lots of purple stuff is shot at you from much higher Tiers XD pew pew Ka-booooom

 

Wid.

389

Actually my Anaconda-M guard has less survival now than before the patch, not in therms of numbers which are the same but in real survival time. Same goes for my Crusader, but my Engi and Commands are doing much much better than last patch. And yes LRF torps still passes through as Missile Shield only kills 2 and then goes off and have a little cooldown time.

 

Wid.

As has been noted many times in this thread, federation is currently brokenly weak. If you want a guard, you fly jericho. Healing, you fly empire. Etc.

 

About the only arguable exception is tacklers, and they’re just weak overall. Jericho has better CO ships and empire has better recons and gunships.

390

Missile Shield

The module now works for a limited time after activation: 10 seconds

The module can now take down guided torpedoes

Energy consumption mode changed: the energy is only spent once when the module is activated

Activation requires from 240 to 400 energy pts. depending on tier and modification

Reload time increased by 200% - 315% depending on tier and modification

 

Does that mean that we have to reactivate the module every 10 seconds, or that it can only take down a missile every 10 seconds? Or is it more like pulsar where you can only use it once for X amount of time and then you have to wait for it to reload. If thats the case, then its usability has really been reduced. Most of the time you dont have time to press a button and activate your missile shield. Not a very good mechanic imo

391

Missile Shield

The module now works for a limited time after activation: 10 seconds

The module can now take down guided torpedoes

Energy consumption mode changed: the energy is only spent once when the module is activated

Activation requires from 240 to 400 energy pts. depending on tier and modification

Reload time increased by 200% - 315% depending on tier and modification

 

Does that mean that we have to reactivate the module every 10 seconds, or that it can only take down a missile every 10 seconds? Or is it more like pulsar where you can only use it once for X amount of time and then you have to wait for it to reload

After you activate the module, it activates for 10 seconds after which it goes on cooldown. During activation period it can shoot down missiles, and when it shoots down a missile, its ability to shoot down missiles goes on cooldown for 1 second, after which it can shoot down missiles again.

It can shoot down missiles as long as its ability to do so is not on cooldown and it’s activated. After activation period ends, the module itself goes on cooldown.

392

Is there a monetary limit on the vouchers ?   I can’t seem to get past 2,300,000 for Federation Rank 15 Armada no matter how many contracts I complete. 

So I take it that you have to switch to another subfraction or race?        

393

Is there a monetary limit on the vouchers ?   I can’t seem to get past 2,300,000 for Federation Rank 15 Armada no matter how many contracts I complete. 

So I take it that you have to switch to another subfraction or race?        

The actual limit is 1,000,000. You may have more because of the conversion.

394

Is there a monetary limit on the vouchers ?   I can’t seem to get past 2,300,000 for Federation Rank 15 Armada no matter how many contracts I complete. 

So I take it that you have to switch to another subfraction or race?

it is in patch notes

395

Wth they increase the cooldown time to flares, 38 sec to pop mk3! 

396

it is in patch notes

 

:facepalm:  Seems I missed the “Memo” 

 

 

:learn:

Loyalty changes

Faction loyalty can now be spent on upgrading modules

All your accumulated loyalty will be exchanged into the new currency: Loyalty vouchers

 

A pilot can’t have more that 1’000’000 LV with each faction

If a pilot has more than 1 million LV at the time of maintenance, the extra LV will not be deducted

If a pilot has more than 1 million LV, he won’t be able to accumulate more LV

If a pilot spends the extra LV, he won’t be able to accumulate more than 1 million LV again

 

Hmm I guess I better find out what I have to spend this on …

397

Wth they increase the cooldown time to flares, 38 sec to pop mk3! 

Flares remove slow with implant.

 

God frigates have a huge slow radius after patch.

 

God frigates shall not be denied free kills!

398

Flares remove slow with implant.

 

God frigates have a huge slow radius after patch.

 

God frigates shall not be denied free kills!

I dunno man… with flares, those pesky intys can get to the guard even faster, so guards have less work to do, so this decision is debatable :slight_smile:

399

Hey, just some little things that I’ve noticed that might be worthwhile to change/add/think about in the next patch. 

 

I think it would be nice if we could use the upgrade kits in the warehouse, rather than having to select the ship, move to the correct module type, etc. etc. 

 

The Pirate PVE missions is extremely difficult now. The fighters are doing 2k+ damage with every hit and that’s hard to survive in an interceptor or any ship for that matter. 

 

Maybe a better system for contracts and gaining loyalty vouchers would be instead of having to select the contract every single time we could make the contracts more difficult to do and have all of them enabled at the same time for matches so when we fulfill the contracts, there could be a popup that’s like BOOM MASS N O O B KILLING CONTRACT FULFILLED. 

 

Boss 

400

Maybe we could also tie the contracts/loyalty vouchers with the in game medals so for triple kills or something we can get 100 loyalty vouchers. That at least makes getting medals a little more significant.