The Match Maker...WTF!!!

Game Discussion Miscellaneous
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How is it that this game is in Full Release,Out of beta,and we sat in the MM with a 4 man squad,in T3,and sat for over 20 minutes trying to find a match?The only way we could get all the guys in the same match was to pop singles at the same time…WHY!!! do not get get me wrong,i love this game,been playing for a good bit.I have seen many changes.The MM has plagued this game for some time.

 

Why has the Dev never added something to get people in Squads,like a faction voucher mission,get in a squad and run X amount of matches,hell even though a mono crystal in there.And the same thing for open space?Give the players some reason to squad up.The big part of this game is Corps,So please give the players more reason to squad up,and this might help some. All i know is,There is no reason this MM should be an issue,YOUR OUT OF BETA FOR PETES SAKE…

 

I mean this game is called Star “Conflict”,not start “dress your pet up” conflict,how the hell does that make people want to play the game?

 

*“oh look guys,they have pet contests.Let’s play this game”…Really?

 

Give the payers more reason to get in a 4 man or bigger squad,and now they are getting a taste with the new PvE(Though  i do not care for PvE) mission.This is a good thing,now lets take it a step further and let get them big group out in to Attack sector.Make it a daily mission.^ man or better squad and go to a sector and kill X amount of cybers and so on.You can add this to the PvP too,just a few few small changes to the Faction Voucher mission,and BOOM…!!!

 

Just saying guys,and please take this with a grain of salt,and sry for the rant.But i am getting close to the limit here…Ps hope this was the right place to post this…

 

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“Working as intended.”

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“Working as intended.”

So it is there intention to make the match maker make us wait so long,and then the only way to get your team in the same match is to pop singles?

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So it is there intention to make the match maker make us wait so long,and then the only way to get your team in the same match is to pop singles?

It’s a game that promotes teamwork. However, there’s no teamwork if there aren’t at least 2 squads of the same size in the same Tier. Considering how dead the game has become in T3+, the game quickly turned into, YET AGAIN, “Waiting Simulator 2014”.

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The main problem is the lack of players. If more players comes, more wants to squad up.

And I suspect there’s no problem with the developers, it’s more about the management.

Gaijin handle this game as a secondary project, and everytime players comes and the game starts getting better and get more players, they decide to mess it up to send them to War Thunder.

Because come on, when the game was awesome and the servers crashed because of the huge amount of players, they didn’t improve the servers, they just brought changes which made people leave.

Why would anyone do that, without reason?

That’s my conspiracy theory.

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That’s my conspiracy theory.

You’d be surprised.

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The servers are an issue,they had more,but last year,i can only guess as they needed for the new update for the tanks in WT,they took them off line for this game.But then they hand out a bunch of beta keys,get flooded with players and do not have the server space to hold them.I myself got allot of people to try this game,there complaint,the MM and the crappie lag.And as for the player base,we might have allot,but if you give them a reason to group up,and show them the benefits of a squad.Maybe more would.

 

They push the Whole corp idea,every tournament i have hosted,or stream for this game has been about the corp,save one.So lets get the Squad action some more appeal,some type or a reward for it.And personally the Gaijin devs,yes i do think something is wrong with them,they fail to see the Excellent game they have and it’s potential it has… 

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Hello,

 

squad matchmaking will always be the most difficult thing to balance and we are still tweeking it to find the best solution.

Adding more players sounds like an easy solution, but it isn’t that easy. How long will a new player squad last against an ESB/WPK/NASA squad? Letting squads face normal players only will cause even more complains, because a 4 man squad can have a big impact on a game against only randoms.

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I’d guess the cause of this, like certain other issues, simply is the lack of players.

 

Normally I’d agree that it’s the low player count.

 

However, XofJSA mentioned that they got into the same game by queuing separately. That isn’t a population issue. That’s coding.

 

If all of the pilots who were in the group got into the same game separately, yet couldn’t get in while in a group, that’s a problem with the matchmaker trying to compensate, and failing miserably.

 

EDIT: Ninja’d by Error.

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Hello,

 

squad matchmaking will always be the most difficult thing to balance and we are still tweeking it to find the best solution.

Adding more players sounds like an easy solution, but it isn’t that easy. How long will a new player squad last against an ESB/WPK/NASA squad? Letting squads face normal players only will cause even more complains, because a 4 man squad can have a big impact on a game against only randoms.

I understand that,but you know the only way to beat a ESB/WPK/NASA squad,is another Squad.They do so well because a good time ago,they figured it out,the Squad teamwork is the key.I feel if there was more encouragement for Getting people to squad up so they too can come to understand the power of teamwork.The GoD corp has went up against them,we win some,we lose some,but we get better each time.

Is there any type of encouragement for group play?How about you give out some mono crystals or something for group play,like a daily mission… there has to be something that can be done…

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You gotta admit tho, it’s hard to balance 4squads if they only meet 3&4squads, since that conglomerates better players into forming even stronger 4 squads because they are usually formed by players who are longer in the game.

Leading them to use usually better equipment next to more organized teamplay.

This might produce a lot of statistical data that is hard to interprete, or could give you the impression, squads are stronger “by themselves”, too, I have to add.

However, this game needs teamplay by design, so squads should be encouraged. For some team oriented players, 4 squads aren’t enough, while for others, they are already too strong, since they have to grind their items and ships.

This means, technically, the client has to focus on socialization, a good GUI for that, maybe less stretch on equipment differences between mk2 and mk4, keeping mk2 fits slightly more competitive, and upgrading them to their full effect more optional; commercials to encourage team fights, tournaments, etc. - something other games in this sector do much much more. So I see the problems more in those directions.

I believe a magic MM is not possible, and it is also in the hands of the players, how our community, and our game and its gaming culture, evolves. I believe the MM could do better, and I can remember a time, where squads or no squads meant little difference, so I can also say, our pilots overall have evolved probably in small islands. Not saying, there aren’t a lot of good pilots, who learned the game totally solo, but most players who play for a long time now, play a lot in groups. Which makes them perform better solo yet again, because they understand the things like “looking at the ships of the enemy team”, which a first-year player or player-in-new-tier might feel overwhelmed with.

I am at least glad, strong players still come and show how you can play if you are determined. In many team games, pubs usually become less interesting, and focus of veterans goes more into inhouse gaming. This often kills the community, if pubbers have no chance to get into the club.

To reduce the timer, at the current idea of the MM, I would suggest adding 4squad +2 random vs. 3*2 squad rulesets as a test, and enabling corp vs. corp squad games, if no other squad is available in the queue.

Overall I still think, this is just a symptom of multiple core causes, some which cannot be fixed, others which might need fixes in totally unrelated areas

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In my opinion, the problems started when squadding went from mandatory to optional, and then optional to impossible.

The problems caused by killsquads were usually solved by waiting for said killsquad to get into a match before you queued again. The fact that the toughest squads dominated the matches forced people to buck up or tier down.

Not long ago, I had posts deleted for suggesting bad players should go back to Tier 2 where they belong. The Devs have decided that skill is no-longer a prerequisite of progression; now, even the most useless of pilot is entitled to fly T5 with the top dogs.

While I understand entirely that players do not want to get curb-stomped, the fact is that the Devs have repeatedly let the vets down by failing to provide them quality matches further up the tier structure.

When T5 was launched, the very best pilots were able to jump straight in to top ships and tech. The rest had to start from scratch. This made flying T5 unpalatable, which began a cycle of matchmaking issues.

In the end, a large population of vets stopped trying to move up beyond T3 because in T3 they had the best gear, short wait times and good sized games. T4 and T5 presented them with longer wait times for smaller games using weaker ships.

Then the changes began to punish squadding up to “protect” the new blood, who because of the inferior progression system now found it even harder to match the vets in equipment.

And so we get to the current situation - a game where coordination and teamwork are required to make best use of ships, and absolutely vital to beat endgame content, but at no point is this EVER encouraged as people advance to the endgame. In fact, the opposite is true; players are punished for squadding up with insanely long wait times, and if they do get a game they will likely face far superior players.

What we need right now is to get the pugs to buck up their ideas and play to the standards we were held to under 0.7, where T3 was for serious players and T4 was dominated by corps.

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In my opinion, the problems started when squadding went from mandatory to optional, and then optional to impossible.

The problems caused by killsquads were usually solved by waiting for said killsquad to get into a match before you queued again. The fact that the toughest squads dominated the matches forced people to buck up or tier down.

Not long ago, I had posts deleted for suggesting bad players should go back to Tier 2 where they belong. The Devs have decided that skill is no-longer a prerequisite of progression; now, even the most useless of pilot is entitled to fly T5 with the top dogs.

While I understand entirely that players do not want to get curb-stomped, the fact is that the Devs have repeatedly let the vets down by failing to provide them quality matches further up the tier structure.

When T5 was launched, the very best pilots were able to jump straight in to top ships and tech. The rest had to start from scratch. This made flying T5 unpalatable, which began a cycle of matchmaking issues.

In the end, a large population of vets stopped trying to move up beyond T3 because in T3 they had the best gear, short wait times and good sized games. T4 and T5 presented them with longer wait times for smaller games using weaker ships.

Then the changes began to punish squadding up to “protect” the new blood, who because of the inferior progression system now found it even harder to match the vets in equipment.

And so we get to the current situation - a game where coordination and teamwork are required to make best use of ships, and absolutely vital to beat endgame content, but at no point is this EVER encouraged as people advance to the endgame. In fact, the opposite is true; players are punished for squadding up with insanely long wait times, and if they do get a game they will likely face far superior players.

What we need right now is to get the pugs to buck up their ideas and play to the standards we were held to under 0.7, where T3 was for serious players and T4 was dominated by corps.

 

This couldn’t be more true. It is ridiculous that in a game based on teams, squadding is basically punished. I agree that squads shouldn’t be paired against all randoms, but broadening the squadding system so that 4-man and 3-man squads can be paired up against 2 different 2-man squads could be possible. But that is a short-term solution. The long-term solutions are that this game NEEDS to be advertised more/better in order to increase the player base, and that the squadding should be promoted, instead of punished. I understand that squads of less-skilled players won’t do very well against an ESB/Nova/NASA squad, but they will do better than they would flying solo. They will also improve their skill as players and learn new tactics. There is no better way to improve your skill as a player than learning from your defeats. “It’s not really that much of a big deal- you brush it off and you come back. Defeat is the secret ingredient to success.” -Conor McGregor.

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The first problem was they increased the number of tiers too quickly. T5 is totally unnecessary. Now there’s T3 for tournaments and big games, basically for everything, then there’s a T4 what everyone wants to leave as quickly as possible, and then the T5 for SC and “pro players”. Usually the most of the players in T5 are just aces who wanted to crawl up fast because they thought if they go up to T5 then they are “very skilled and elite pilots”. Also, T5 needs a lot of resources, even though you don’t get enough vouchers/credits after the games what you can use to level up your ships.

 

The second problem is the Invasion mode. Not a bad idea, but it’s more emphasized than it should be. Don’t advertise it, it’s just an option to get more resources, it’s not as important as PVP. Several players never plays PVP, they just go to Invasion and synergizing up the ships there, and when they meet with a real player, they don’t know what to do. Players don’t get enough rewards from PVP, so they just go PVE because its easier and pays more.

 

The third problem is changing without thinking. The game is out of beta, it’s released, devs should handle it like that. And what do we see? Sometimes they make radical changes, buff and nerf things without think about the consequences. When messed up the boosters, everyone knew it will screw up several well-worked fits. Except the devs. When they boosted missile pylons, everyone knew players will put 3 of them into the ships and start spamming torpedoes/drones/everything which is in the missile slots. Except the devs. Then nowadays they buffed tackler drones. Everyone knew they will spam drones and cruise engine around the map. Except the devs.
That’s why I think devs wouldn’t make such terrible ideas, there must be something behind this. It’s too suspicious.

 

And these problems makes people leave and separate the current player-base. That’s why we need to wait at least 10 minutes everywhere.

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That’s my conspiracy theory.

 

The third problem is changing without thinking. The game is out of beta, it’s released, devs should handle it like that. And what do we see? Sometimes they make radical changes, buff and nerf things without think about the consequences. When messed up the boosters, everyone knew it will screw up several well-worked fits. Except the devs. When they boosted missile pylons, everyone knew players will put 3 of them into the ships and start spamming torpedoes/drones/everything which is in the missile slots. Except the devs. Then nowadays they buffed tackler drones. Everyone knew they will spam drones and cruise engine around the map. Except the devs.

That’s why I think devs wouldn’t make such terrible ideas, there must be something behind this. It’s too suspicious.

Oh, so close. Not quite there, but you’re on the right track to figuring out what’s really wrong with the game.

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Most of the players who were doing T3 squads are now in T5 because the new Pilot rating rewards playing in high tier games. We even got 4 men squads matchs in T5 this weekend.

 

2 pilot squads in T5 have almost the same waiting time than solo players.

 

And as somebody told here before, most people stopped doing squads in T3 because who would want to face a T3 deathsquad over and over again? After some time, people will start doing squads again in T3.

 

Finally, I agree that a squad driven event in PvP AND PvE would be wonderful. Just give rewards to people playing in squad, something like voucher bonuses, or a small quantity of vouchers if you win X games in a squad. It doesn’t need to be a high reward, even 40k bonus credits would be a lot for people in low and middle tiers.

 

After the event is finished, some people will keep doing squads, and as soon as randoms see their peers playing in squad, they will want to do that also.

 

You need to do it now that most of the veterans are in high tier games, farming Pilot rating for their ego.