You would see my thoughts on the effects that even just win / loss would have. <b>Stacking and F4ing... </b>
Also it was pointed out to you that it will also create more conflict between experienced and inexperienced as someone elses bad performance will now effect a stat assigned to you.
<!--coloro:ORANGE--><span style="color:ORANGE"><!--/coloro-->Snip<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> How do you stack a matchmaking? It's based on ELO..
<!--quoteo(post=2054135:date=Jan 1 2013, 07:59 AM:name=Imbalanxd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Imbalanxd @ Jan 1 2013, 07:59 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2054135"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->They don't need to. In 6 months time, you will be ######ing and moaning about how gamers nowadays are mindless COD kiddies who are unwilling to learn, and how its so unfair that the games you like have absolutely no player base, and they will be off playing new games and not giving a ######.
Guess who wins? Cuz it aint you.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I haven't played ns2 in like a month, because the hitreg is still effing horrible and the devs take forever to patch, and the patches don't really do anything. I still click the favorites link to this site sometimes though.
And I played a game called savage for 10 years straight, which never had more than 300 players, and loved every second of it. If ns2 gets that low i wouldn't mind as long as it isn't a dumbed down piece of ###### at that point.
In the end, I can't lose because all I care about is fragging people. ecks ######in dee
<!--quoteo(post=2054613:date=Jan 2 2013, 12:30 PM:name=wiry)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (wiry @ Jan 2 2013, 12:30 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2054613"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Are you dumb? How do you stack a matchmaking? It's based on ELO..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The only thing that would influence someones ranking in such a case would be stacking. I've played numerous team based games which have a definitive winner in which I was widely considered one of the best players in the community (L4D2 and NS/NS2 for example) and yet I still came out with a win loss of maybe just below or above 50%. No better than anybody else.
<!--quoteo(post=2054618:date=Jan 2 2013, 11:52 AM:name=Imbalanxd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Imbalanxd @ Jan 2 2013, 11:52 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2054618"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I was widely considered one of the best players in the community (L4D2 and NS/NS2 for example)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
:D
-
Also, stacking isn't possible in matchmaking. Unless you could have arranged teams meeting random teams. Don't blame matchmaking for your severely distorted ego.
<!--quoteo(post=2054613:date=Jan 2 2013, 06:30 PM:name=wiry)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (wiry @ Jan 2 2013, 06:30 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2054613"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Are you dumb? How do you stack a matchmaking? It's based on ELO..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The rating system is irrelevant.
What is relevant is methods for joining a game. Does what you are proposing remove the ability to browse the server list and join what ever you want? Cause if so, good luck selling that to PC gamers.
I'd also add, that if you get put on a team of people that you know suck at communicating, you'd probably F4 right at the start of the game considering the out come of the game is once again going to effect more than just your fun for the next few minutes.
Also, stacking isn't possible in matchmaking. Unless you could have arranged teams meeting random teams. Don't blame matchmaking for your severely distorted ego.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I have clearly stated numerous times in the past, and indeed it says directly to the right, that I live in South Africa. This combined with the relatively niche market that the aforementioned games are played by means that the community I played in was very small. I thought that everyone had heard that countless times, so I just stopped explicitly stating it.
I apologize if I somehow offended your epeen in some way.
<!--quoteo(post=2054630:date=Jan 2 2013, 12:26 PM:name=Seahunts)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Seahunts @ Jan 2 2013, 12:26 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2054630"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What is relevant is methods for joining a game. Does what you are proposing remove the ability to browse the server list and join what ever you want? Cause if so, good luck selling that to PC gamers.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thinking of some game that I don't play really helps.
Either way, I'm with Imbalanxd on this. Small local server population renders matchmaking a waste of time. We would only receive the negatives of what ever rubbish system came in.
Seriously, is it really that hard to leave a server and find another one if you aren't having fun?
What about a system where the player gets to choose in which of the 4 skill pools he'd like to be put?
0 "I'm new to this game" (Newbie) 1 "I think I know the game" (Rookie) 2 "I definitely know the game" (Experienced) 3 "I could make money with these skills!" (Pro)
I don't see how matchmaking a bunch of beginners to the same server helps them learn the game. The matches would be dire. They need veterans there to see how they do things.
Then how do you reckon people improve at other MOBAs? They watch streams of pro people playing, check youtube vids, read forums etc. All these are very easily accessible by some very good work of community members such as blind and ryne.
<!--quoteo(post=2054679:date=Jan 3 2013, 12:57 AM:name=Zaggy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Zaggy @ Jan 3 2013, 12:57 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2054679"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What about a system where the player gets to choose in which of the 4 skill pools he'd like to be put?
0 "I'm new to this game" (Newbie) 1 "I think I know the game" (Rookie) 2 "I definitely know the game" (Experienced) 3 "I could make money with these skills!" (Pro)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Ya, i agree a choose your own rank system is much superior to statistical ranking because you bypass ladder fear and the idea of being constantly evaluated, big issues in other games such as battlenet/sc2.
The problem though is you still need either an accurate ranking system to correctly and dynamically gauge the 'skill level' of a server, or you need to rely on server operators to manually predict matchmaking demand and set server status' appropriately. The latter is a bit of a nuisance, and 'community' server operators who don't have multiple instances can only either cater to one subset, or don't enter a server difficulty setting and end up getting getting shafted as 2nd priority servers so to speak. Also, as there is no strong incentive to cater to demand, you could very well see a situation with many difficulty 2/3 servers and not enough 0/1 vice versa. Relying on official servers to fill the gap i don't think is a viable long term solution.
As dgel pointed out, the statistical ranking system is never going to be very accurate nor helpful due to inherent problems relating to NS2 gameplay. Specifically, win/loss ranking is a pretty crude way of encouraging a) teamstack behaviour from peoplewho don't join servers through matchmake (what we were trying to initially trying to get rid of) b) team disunity and player disillusionment. Because outcomes are now overwhelmingly linked to the actions of others, instead of what we wanted, which is the player c) f4 at the first sign of disadvantage or just before a loss event triggers d) people unwilling to switch teams to 'autobalance' e) people purposefully trolling or causing team losses to deflate their ranking
and you're going to suffer from e) inaccuracy from unintentional piggybacking f) issues with comparing players across #games played g) unranked vs ranked servers and partial splintering of the community
*MOBA's handle alot of these issues by having games take place in much tighter controlled settings (you can't freely join/leave), and having much lower standard player counts 10p as opposed to 18p or 24p, or even 12p.
<!--quoteo(post=2054618:date=Jan 2 2013, 10:52 AM:name=Imbalanxd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Imbalanxd @ Jan 2 2013, 10:52 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2054618"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I was widely considered one of the best players in the community (L4D2 and NS/NS2 for example)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Whilst the benefits are obvious, I think fundamentally implementing this system would be terribly difficult.
Just what type of gather system are we getting at: In built Gather system? (6v6, 8v8, 10v10?) Join server match making where servers are listed as Rookie, Average, Good and depending on your score your sent accordingly.
How would your score be created? I would rather it be on player votes rather than Win/Losses (as W/L should be 50-50 no matter how good you are.) Perhaps a MotM vote at the end of every gather?
Honestly I only see a in-built gather system working because any other match making system would end up with a crap ton of logistical problems. But that begs the question, why do we need another one? We already have ensl.org... Because this one would be readily available to the entire community instead of just people who go there? Yet, wouldn't that make it worse?
I remember when gathers (hell I only joined a few months ago) were good and we had about 1 new player a day... Now... well you all know what they are like now...
So what use would a gather system be? You want tiered gathers? I could see that being a good idea. But how do you move up and down tiers?
If we get to the point of tiered gathers with lots of people using the system how do you deal with the player count? Although I doubt it would be that large, we already have like 12 servers for gathers... UWE could put up the other half and thats 168 spaces for 6v6 gathers...
...
Ok maybe I agree it wouldnt be that logistically impossible...
<!--quoteo(post=2054347:date=Jan 1 2013, 02:46 PM:name=Dghelneshi)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dghelneshi @ Jan 1 2013, 02:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2054347"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Is it really that hard to read my post? <b> I've even made two separate points</b>. <b>1.</b> and <b>2.</b>, to emphasize that there are two possibilities (or a combination thereof). Even if I hadn't numbered them, it would still take some serious not-reading-the-post or not even intending to understand it to conclude that I think MOBAs rank people based on K/D.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i did read it and i don't see your point ? if there would be matchmaking games, you couldn't a) swap teams b) leave without penalty ( if you leave, it's counted as loss ) c) if someone leaves, you could get replacement ofcourse from matchmaking pool.
then there would be different league, wich is known as public games and they would be exacly as game is right now, i don't see what's the problem here ?
<!--quoteo(post=2054692:date=Jan 2 2013, 03:26 PM:name=Stardog)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Stardog @ Jan 2 2013, 03:26 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2054692"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I don't see how matchmaking a bunch of beginners to the same server helps them learn the game. The matches would be dire. They need veterans there to see how they do things.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It'd prevent them from being stomped by a couple veteran players. Going by the forums posts there are quite a few people that are running out of patience. I'm not saying that the current system should be changed to matchmaking only, just make it an option to set the skill level on a server or set it to "any".
I dont think a matchmaking system would work with the current server infrastructure. I think the devs would have to rework a lot of the existing server code. A ranking system however could be useful to balance teams on a server. The point is, if you have 4 vets and 4 noobson each team, the noobs can learn from the vets, the noobs wont get totally stomped and the vets still have their fun playing pub. @ Zaggy, as good as your idea sounds, I don't think this would work out. You would have beginners setting themself to pro in order to show everyone how badass they are and pros smurfing under a beginner tag. I still think a simple elo showing the number of won and lost matches would be better. The leaver problem is not really an issue, your elo will not improve faster if you leave every time you seem to lose. Instead you will be just stuck at the default elo. It is also possible to punish players who try to game the system (add a loss for leavers). If you think elo is gonna create too much grief, why not base rank on hours played?
You wouldn't use K/D, use score instead (with the addition of proper and official assist scoring and points for welding / heal spraying). Supplement with win/loss ratio considerations.
<!--quoteo(post=2054737:date=Jan 2 2013, 05:59 PM:name=Azaral)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Azaral @ Jan 2 2013, 05:59 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2054737"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You wouldn't use K/D, use score instead (with the addition of proper and official assist scoring and points for welding / heal spraying). Supplement with win/loss ratio considerations.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Typically its more beneficial to come up with a solution that doesn't in turn require a solution to 10 other, far more difficult problems.
<!--quoteo(post=2054692:date=Jan 2 2013, 04:26 PM:name=Stardog)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Stardog @ Jan 2 2013, 04:26 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2054692"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I don't see how matchmaking a bunch of beginners to the same server helps them learn the game. The matches would be dire. They need veterans there to see how they do things.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And that's why everyone who plays NS is still so awfully bad at the game. Or did we all learn from a couple of people who were born with knowledge of NS?
<!--quoteo(post=2054679:date=Jan 2 2013, 08:57 AM:name=Zaggy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Zaggy @ Jan 2 2013, 08:57 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2054679"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What about a system where the player gets to choose in which of the 4 skill pools he'd like to be put?
0 "I'm new to this game" (Newbie) 1 "I think I know the game" (Rookie) 2 "I definitely know the game" (Experienced) 3 "I could make money with these skills!" (Pro)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The only problems here are that many Newbies and all n00bs misjudge their abilities, and this now identifies all the newbies to the trolls who want an easy game.
<!--quoteo(post=2054679:date=Jan 2 2013, 08:57 AM:name=Zaggy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Zaggy @ Jan 2 2013, 08:57 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2054679"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What about a system where the player gets to choose in which of the 4 skill pools he'd like to be put?
0 "I'm new to this game" (Newbie) 1 "I think I know the game" (Rookie) 2 "I definitely know the game" (Experienced) 3 "I could make money with these skills!" (Pro)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Asking players to rank themselves is never a good idea imo. I road race motorcycles and when you do track days (non competitive events) where anyone can sign up people are put into skill groups for safety reasons. Riding with a few specific organizations that allow people to assign their own group has always been a terrible experience. The skill for the group as a hole is generally way less then normal and people often put themselves in up2-3 groups higher then they should (out of 4).
Perhaps a different set of options such as:
1) Include me in match making (yes/no) 2) What is the maximum skill you want to have (#) and use your number system for example and let there be some sort of system for ranking players automatically.
Personally I would only be in favor of a ranking system if you could turn it off and players couldn't see their own rank.
Implement match making as a seperate entity to pub
Make it 6v6 only
Determine ELO by player win/loss ratio.
Allow players/teams to group queue (in a seperate mode or same mode, I don't care.)
This mode would be seperate to pub, therefore only be for serious players. The "I play for fun!" People can enjoy their public games and us more competitive players can actually enjoy some challenging (hopefully) gameplay, as opposed to the extremely frustratingly boring rookie filled games today.
For any kind of matchmaking you need a matching population of players so you got enough players to supply 24/7 availability for all tiers of skill levels. The number of population required also depends on the number of players each single round can hold and on how many skill tiers you have to supply. NS in addition to these 2 problems also suffers from the "how to rate" problem, as of right now the game barely tracks useful behavior or stats that go beyond "kill and deaths". Depending on what stats you rate a player you will see gaming the system to tweak these stats.
Even ignoring the rating issue by going a route like this: <!--quoteo(post=2054679:date=Jan 2 2013, 02:57 PM:name=Zaggy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Zaggy @ Jan 2 2013, 02:57 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2054679"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What about a system where the player gets to choose in which of the 4 skill pools he'd like to be put?
0 "I'm new to this game" (Newbie) 1 "I think I know the game" (Rookie) 2 "I definitely know the game" (Experienced) 3 "I could make money with these skills!" (Pro)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You still have the problem of populating the different skill tiers. As of right now there are 3000 people playing NS2. Playernumbers per round are on average 18 players (maybe lower), you have 4 skill tiers and at least 3 different geographical regions amongst which the players are distributed. Now try doing the math.. it just won't add up. You will end up with overpopulated skill tiers, underpopulated ones and meaningless ones.
Games like LoL or Starcraft 2 don't have that issue, the need less players per round and they have an immensely bigger playerbase to chose from (Millions vs thousands) making their Matchmaking way more workable and able to guarantee that everybody gets to play a round at his skill-tier level, 24/7.
What could actually work is league support for pure 6vs6 games build into the game, but that certainly won't help the horrible state that public gaming currently is in.
rankings should be just like mobas : everyone starts with say 1500 points, you win games against ppl who have more points than you you win lots of points they lose lots of points you win games against ppl with lower ranking you win little points they lose little and vice versa if you lose.
<!--quoteo(post=2054815:date=Jan 2 2013, 06:13 PM:name=FrankerZ)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (FrankerZ @ Jan 2 2013, 06:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2054815"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->rankings should be just like mobas : everyone starts with say 1500 points, you win games against ppl who have more points than you you win lots of points they lose lots of points you win games against ppl with lower ranking you win little points they lose little and vice versa if you lose.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think that would be a nice idea. A matchmaking system on its own is a hard task to implement, though, so statistics and overviews might just do the job for now. I guess what would help the players is getting more feedback how well do they compared to others and that the game encourages a certain kind of gameplay, that is, doing something useful for the team. A MOBA-like raking would have it issues as it might happen that you join a game which runs for about 30 minutes and it happens that you just in-time join the winning side and receive some points though you didn't do anything so far. Rankings usually require you to fully attend a game from its start till its end, otherwise the ranking would be somewhat falsified. Some might argue like that, though, I wouldn't.
If such kind of ranking is just thought of as an addition to the game, to give a <i>general</i> notion how well someones doing compared to others and to give an idea how balanced teams are in terms of ranking, then I think that'll be a great idea. I guess some sort of ladder, ranking and overall more feedback is what I'd love to see implemented next. Well, yeah, and that finally they kick out the K/D-Ratio from the scoreboard and give more points for doing useful stuff. Killing is useful of course - even dying might be useful sometimes! - but it conveys a wrong message. Killing doesn't win a game, it is just a requirement to do so - teamwork wins a game and completing several objectives like building, healing, defending and so on.
A accessable in-game ranking together with sophisticated player-statistics - how often commander? how many games won as commander? K/D-ratio? how many hours played? etc. - would help, I think, to balance teams out yourself. With a ranking it would be much more obvious if people stack teams just to beat up newbies and they would, for good reasons, get insulted for doing so as they ruin the fun for others. I think there's something you can learn from MOBA-games and that is how useful and how much fun it can be to get feedback from the game how well you do.
That's something which could be included easily. At least easier than designing some sort of matchmaking system, an idea I rather dislike. Having people with varying levels of skill playing together isn't a bad thing, in fact, it is very common. The newbies can learn from the vets. What's a problem though, is having vets going all into one team. So far, there's no way to tell on the first glance whether teams are even or not. A ranking would definitly help that players can form even teams themselves and vets would probably get blamed for stacking teams and would realize themselves that this ain't any fun.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRlYM9F50EQ" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRlYM9F50EQ</a> especially this part: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxBw4AK3RYs" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxBw4AK3RYs</a>
i think most people who's againts the matchmaking system doesn't even see issue why this game would need such a feature, and it's simple, there is absolutely zero servers that i have encountered that has EVEN force random by nature, this creates HUGE skill level differences and only rare and few games are actually balanced, because sadly, veterans tends to either a) leave or b) join winning side to boost their score, also these veterans very rarely helps newbies around, instead they just stomp them and flame them if other team says " balance teams pls ".
adding matchmaking shouldn't be forced upon players... it should be optional, giving people who is bored on uneven, unintresting games another option to play little more competetive.
i think servers should be labeled "ranked" or "unranked", on ranked servers there is strict rules, games never start until teams are found from matchmaking to balance both teams ratings and once game starts, you can join these servers only if someone leaves to fill the left spot, however, you would only gain / lose rating if you play the game from start till end, and leaving will always result into loss game -> lower rating. How these games gets started ? well, you get to queue from certain menu to find a new match.
I'm not necessarily against match making, but I don't think it will work well in NS2. The primary reason for this is simply the small population base. You need to create matches for SEA, NA, and EU regions as >100 ping kind of breaks NS2, imo. Then you have skill brackets, beginner, intermediate, expert which will further divide the small player base. And for the potentially biggest division, you'll have non-matched players vs matched players.
Nobody wants to wait for 10 minutes for a matched game. And a matched game isn't necessarily a balanced game, either. I played Global Agenda which utilized microsoft's truskill system to match up 10v10 games. 2/3 of the games were still steamrolls despite a ranked match making system. I don't think match making makes games any better than free play servers. It just gives a different excuse (match making screwed me!!) for imbalanced games.
In my opinion, any FPS game which heavily values teamwork is going to lead to frequent steam roll feeling games. If one team is just a bit better than the other team, it carries over and compounds throughout the game; leaving the weaker team only further weakened throughout the game.
<!--quoteo(post=2055129:date=Jan 2 2013, 10:37 PM:name=GORGEous)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GORGEous @ Jan 2 2013, 10:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2055129"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm not necessarily against match making, but I don't think it will work well in NS2. The primary reason for this is simply the small population base. You need to create matches for SEA, NA, and EU regions as >100 ping kind of breaks NS2, imo. Then you have skill brackets, beginner, intermediate, expert which will further divide the small player base. And for the potentially biggest division, you'll have non-matched players vs matched players.
Nobody wants to wait for 10 minutes for a matched game. And a matched game isn't necessarily a balanced game, either. I played Global Agenda which utilized microsoft's truskill system to match up 10v10 games. 2/3 of the games were still steamrolls despite a ranked match making system. I don't think match making makes games any better than free play servers. It just gives a different excuse (match making screwed me!!) for imbalanced games.
In my opinion, any FPS game which heavily values teamwork is going to lead to frequent steam roll feeling games. If one team is just a bit better than the other team, it carries over and compounds throughout the game; leaving the weaker team only further weakened throughout the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree with your first point, but i think we would need to see whats required to have a viable matchmaking system in a game in term of pupulation, and where can we compromise without having ppl get steamrolled too often. the player base has the potential to be decent imo, if every new player's experience could be less soul crushing.
I think your last point is invalid, youre basically saying that because small differences canc reate a snowball effect, we might as well just let ppl get stomped in pubs and not try to match same skill lvl against same skill lvl.
A bit out of topic, would chat lobby be possible in this game?
Comments
You would see my thoughts on the effects that even just win / loss would have. <b>Stacking and F4ing... </b>
Also it was pointed out to you that it will also create more conflict between experienced and inexperienced as someone elses bad performance will now effect a stat assigned to you.
Guess who wins? Cuz it aint you.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I haven't played ns2 in like a month, because the hitreg is still effing horrible and the devs take forever to patch, and the patches don't really do anything. I still click the favorites link to this site sometimes though.
And I played a game called savage for 10 years straight, which never had more than 300 players, and loved every second of it. If ns2 gets that low i wouldn't mind as long as it isn't a dumbed down piece of ###### at that point.
In the end, I can't lose because all I care about is fragging people. ecks ######in dee
The only thing that would influence someones ranking in such a case would be stacking. I've played numerous team based games which have a definitive winner in which I was widely considered one of the best players in the community (L4D2 and NS/NS2 for example) and yet I still came out with a win loss of maybe just below or above 50%. No better than anybody else.
:D
-
Also, stacking isn't possible in matchmaking. Unless you could have arranged teams meeting random teams. Don't blame matchmaking for your severely distorted ego.
The rating system is irrelevant.
What is relevant is methods for joining a game. Does what you are proposing remove the ability to browse the server list and join what ever you want? Cause if so, good luck selling that to PC gamers.
I'd also add, that if you get put on a team of people that you know suck at communicating, you'd probably F4 right at the start of the game considering the out come of the game is once again going to effect more than just your fun for the next few minutes.
-
Also, stacking isn't possible in matchmaking. Unless you could have arranged teams meeting random teams. Don't blame matchmaking for your severely distorted ego.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I have clearly stated numerous times in the past, and indeed it says directly to the right, that I live in South Africa. This combined with the relatively niche market that the aforementioned games are played by means that the community I played in was very small. I thought that everyone had heard that countless times, so I just stopped explicitly stating it.
I apologize if I somehow offended your epeen in some way.
Think MOBA's and you might just grasp it.
Either way, I'm with Imbalanxd on this. Small local server population renders matchmaking a waste of time. We would only receive the negatives of what ever rubbish system came in.
Seriously, is it really that hard to leave a server and find another one if you aren't having fun?
0 "I'm new to this game" (Newbie)
1 "I think I know the game" (Rookie)
2 "I definitely know the game" (Experienced)
3 "I could make money with these skills!" (Pro)
0 "I'm new to this game" (Newbie)
1 "I think I know the game" (Rookie)
2 "I definitely know the game" (Experienced)
3 "I could make money with these skills!" (Pro)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ya, i agree a choose your own rank system is much superior to statistical ranking because you bypass ladder fear and the idea of being constantly evaluated, big issues in other games such as battlenet/sc2.
The problem though is you still need either an accurate ranking system to correctly and dynamically gauge the 'skill level' of a server, or you need to rely on server operators to manually predict matchmaking demand and set server status' appropriately. The latter is a bit of a nuisance, and 'community' server operators who don't have multiple instances can only either cater to one subset, or don't enter a server difficulty setting and end up getting getting shafted as 2nd priority servers so to speak. Also, as there is no strong incentive to cater to demand, you could very well see a situation with many difficulty 2/3 servers and not enough 0/1 vice versa. Relying on official servers to fill the gap i don't think is a viable long term solution.
As dgel pointed out, the statistical ranking system is never going to be very accurate nor helpful due to inherent problems relating to NS2 gameplay. Specifically, win/loss ranking is a pretty crude way of encouraging
a) teamstack behaviour from peoplewho don't join servers through matchmake (what we were trying to initially trying to get rid of)
b) team disunity and player disillusionment. Because outcomes are now overwhelmingly linked to the actions of others, instead of what we wanted, which is the player
c) f4 at the first sign of disadvantage or just before a loss event triggers
d) people unwilling to switch teams to 'autobalance'
e) people purposefully trolling or causing team losses to deflate their ranking
and you're going to suffer from
e) inaccuracy from unintentional piggybacking
f) issues with comparing players across #games played
g) unranked vs ranked servers and partial splintering of the community
*MOBA's handle alot of these issues by having games take place in much tighter controlled settings (you can't freely join/leave), and having much lower standard player counts 10p as opposed to 18p or 24p, or even 12p.
<img src="http://i.chzbgr.com/completestore/2012/3/29/0bc38e0d-53a7-4a0f-8b11-5b1693abeb13.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Whilst the benefits are obvious, I think fundamentally implementing this system would be terribly difficult.
Just what type of gather system are we getting at:
In built Gather system? (6v6, 8v8, 10v10?)
Join server match making where servers are listed as Rookie, Average, Good and depending on your score your sent accordingly.
How would your score be created?
I would rather it be on player votes rather than Win/Losses (as W/L should be 50-50 no matter how good you are.)
Perhaps a MotM vote at the end of every gather?
Honestly I only see a in-built gather system working because any other match making system would end up with a crap ton of logistical problems. But that begs the question, why do we need another one?
We already have ensl.org... Because this one would be readily available to the entire community instead of just people who go there? Yet, wouldn't that make it worse?
I remember when gathers (hell I only joined a few months ago) were good and we had about 1 new player a day... Now... well you all know what they are like now...
So what use would a gather system be?
You want tiered gathers? I could see that being a good idea.
But how do you move up and down tiers?
If we get to the point of tiered gathers with lots of people using the system how do you deal with the player count?
Although I doubt it would be that large, we already have like 12 servers for gathers... UWE could put up the other half and thats 168 spaces for 6v6 gathers...
...
Ok maybe I agree it wouldnt be that logistically impossible...
TL:DR
Sounds good to me.
i did read it and i don't see your point ? if there would be matchmaking games, you couldn't a) swap teams b) leave without penalty ( if you leave, it's counted as loss ) c) if someone leaves, you could get replacement ofcourse from matchmaking pool.
then there would be different league, wich is known as public games and they would be exacly as game is right now, i don't see what's the problem here ?
It'd prevent them from being stomped by a couple veteran players.
Going by the forums posts there are quite a few people that are running out of patience.
I'm not saying that the current system should be changed to matchmaking only, just make it an option to set the skill level on a server or set it to "any".
@ Zaggy, as good as your idea sounds, I don't think this would work out. You would have beginners setting themself to pro in order to show everyone how badass they are and pros smurfing under a beginner tag. I still think a simple elo showing the number of won and lost matches would be better. The leaver problem is not really an issue, your elo will not improve faster if you leave every time you seem to lose. Instead you will be just stuck at the default elo. It is also possible to punish players who try to game the system (add a loss for leavers). If you think elo is gonna create too much grief, why not base rank on hours played?
Typically its more beneficial to come up with a solution that doesn't in turn require a solution to 10 other, far more difficult problems.
And that's why everyone who plays NS is still so awfully bad at the game. Or did we all learn from a couple of people who were born with knowledge of NS?
0 "I'm new to this game" (Newbie)
1 "I think I know the game" (Rookie)
2 "I definitely know the game" (Experienced)
3 "I could make money with these skills!" (Pro)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The only problems here are that many Newbies and all n00bs misjudge their abilities, and this now identifies all the newbies to the trolls who want an easy game.
0 "I'm new to this game" (Newbie)
1 "I think I know the game" (Rookie)
2 "I definitely know the game" (Experienced)
3 "I could make money with these skills!" (Pro)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Asking players to rank themselves is never a good idea imo. I road race motorcycles and when you do track days (non competitive events) where anyone can sign up people are put into skill groups for safety reasons. Riding with a few specific organizations that allow people to assign their own group has always been a terrible experience. The skill for the group as a hole is generally way less then normal and people often put themselves in up2-3 groups higher then they should (out of 4).
Perhaps a different set of options such as:
1) Include me in match making (yes/no)
2) What is the maximum skill you want to have (#) and use your number system for example and let there be some sort of system for ranking players automatically.
Personally I would only be in favor of a ranking system if you could turn it off and players couldn't see their own rank.
Make it 6v6 only
Determine ELO by player win/loss ratio.
Allow players/teams to group queue (in a seperate mode or same mode, I don't care.)
This mode would be seperate to pub, therefore only be for serious players. The "I play for fun!" People can enjoy their public games and us more competitive players can actually enjoy some challenging (hopefully) gameplay, as opposed to the extremely frustratingly boring rookie filled games today.
The number of population required also depends on the number of players each single round can hold and on how many skill tiers you have to supply.
NS in addition to these 2 problems also suffers from the "how to rate" problem, as of right now the game barely tracks useful behavior or stats that go beyond "kill and deaths". Depending on what stats you rate a player you will see gaming the system to tweak these stats.
Even ignoring the rating issue by going a route like this:
<!--quoteo(post=2054679:date=Jan 2 2013, 02:57 PM:name=Zaggy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Zaggy @ Jan 2 2013, 02:57 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2054679"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What about a system where the player gets to choose in which of the 4 skill pools he'd like to be put?
0 "I'm new to this game" (Newbie)
1 "I think I know the game" (Rookie)
2 "I definitely know the game" (Experienced)
3 "I could make money with these skills!" (Pro)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You still have the problem of populating the different skill tiers. As of right now there are 3000 people playing NS2. Playernumbers per round are on average 18 players (maybe lower), you have 4 skill tiers and at least 3 different geographical regions amongst which the players are distributed. Now try doing the math.. it just won't add up. You will end up with overpopulated skill tiers, underpopulated ones and meaningless ones.
Games like LoL or Starcraft 2 don't have that issue, the need less players per round and they have an immensely bigger playerbase to chose from (Millions vs thousands) making their Matchmaking way more workable and able to guarantee that everybody gets to play a round at his skill-tier level, 24/7.
What could actually work is league support for pure 6vs6 games build into the game, but that certainly won't help the horrible state that public gaming currently is in.
I think that would be a nice idea. A matchmaking system on its own is a hard task to implement, though, so statistics and overviews might just do the job for now. I guess what would help the players is getting more feedback how well do they compared to others and that the game encourages a certain kind of gameplay, that is, doing something useful for the team. A MOBA-like raking would have it issues as it might happen that you join a game which runs for about 30 minutes and it happens that you just in-time join the winning side and receive some points though you didn't do anything so far. Rankings usually require you to fully attend a game from its start till its end, otherwise the ranking would be somewhat falsified. Some might argue like that, though, I wouldn't.
If such kind of ranking is just thought of as an addition to the game, to give a <i>general</i> notion how well someones doing compared to others and to give an idea how balanced teams are in terms of ranking, then I think that'll be a great idea. I guess some sort of ladder, ranking and overall more feedback is what I'd love to see implemented next. Well, yeah, and that finally they kick out the K/D-Ratio from the scoreboard and give more points for doing useful stuff. Killing is useful of course - even dying might be useful sometimes! - but it conveys a wrong message. Killing doesn't win a game, it is just a requirement to do so - teamwork wins a game and completing several objectives like building, healing, defending and so on.
A accessable in-game ranking together with sophisticated player-statistics - how often commander? how many games won as commander? K/D-ratio? how many hours played? etc. - would help, I think, to balance teams out yourself. With a ranking it would be much more obvious if people stack teams just to beat up newbies and they would, for good reasons, get insulted for doing so as they ruin the fun for others. I think there's something you can learn from MOBA-games and that is how useful and how much fun it can be to get feedback from the game how well you do.
That's something which could be included easily. At least easier than designing some sort of matchmaking system, an idea I rather dislike. Having people with varying levels of skill playing together isn't a bad thing, in fact, it is very common. The newbies can learn from the vets. What's a problem though, is having vets going all into one team. So far, there's no way to tell on the first glance whether teams are even or not. A ranking would definitly help that players can form even teams themselves and vets would probably get blamed for stacking teams and would realize themselves that this ain't any fun.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRlYM9F50EQ" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRlYM9F50EQ</a>
especially this part: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxBw4AK3RYs" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxBw4AK3RYs</a>
adding matchmaking shouldn't be forced upon players... it should be optional, giving people who is bored on uneven, unintresting games another option to play little more competetive.
i think servers should be labeled "ranked" or "unranked", on ranked servers there is strict rules, games never start until teams are found from matchmaking to balance both teams ratings and once game starts, you can join these servers only if someone leaves to fill the left spot, however, you would only gain / lose rating if you play the game from start till end, and leaving will always result into loss game -> lower rating. How these games gets started ? well, you get to queue from certain menu to find a new match.
tis is just a idea.
Nobody wants to wait for 10 minutes for a matched game. And a matched game isn't necessarily a balanced game, either. I played Global Agenda which utilized microsoft's truskill system to match up 10v10 games. 2/3 of the games were still steamrolls despite a ranked match making system. I don't think match making makes games any better than free play servers. It just gives a different excuse (match making screwed me!!) for imbalanced games.
In my opinion, any FPS game which heavily values teamwork is going to lead to frequent steam roll feeling games. If one team is just a bit better than the other team, it carries over and compounds throughout the game; leaving the weaker team only further weakened throughout the game.
Nobody wants to wait for 10 minutes for a matched game. And a matched game isn't necessarily a balanced game, either. I played Global Agenda which utilized microsoft's truskill system to match up 10v10 games. 2/3 of the games were still steamrolls despite a ranked match making system. I don't think match making makes games any better than free play servers. It just gives a different excuse (match making screwed me!!) for imbalanced games.
In my opinion, any FPS game which heavily values teamwork is going to lead to frequent steam roll feeling games. If one team is just a bit better than the other team, it carries over and compounds throughout the game; leaving the weaker team only further weakened throughout the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree with your first point, but i think we would need to see whats required to have a viable matchmaking system in a game in term of pupulation, and where can we compromise without having ppl get steamrolled too often. the player base has the potential to be decent imo, if every new player's experience could be less soul crushing.
I think your last point is invalid, youre basically saying that because small differences canc reate a snowball effect, we might as well just let ppl get stomped in pubs and not try to match same skill lvl against same skill lvl.
A bit out of topic, would chat lobby be possible in this game?