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Team Stacking - Match Balance

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dragonmere:
I could foresee a few slight problems with any sort of a matchmaking system.

This community, as much as I love it, just isn't big enough yet. If the Gents loaded all their best players into two ships on one team, and joined into this proposed "queueing" system, today, right now, about how long of a wait until a "team of similar skill level" is available? Sure, it could happen, but it would probably take quite a while, and there's the distinct possibility of there not being any team whatsoever online at this very moment that would be "similar skill level". In bigger games that use these MOBA style ranking match-ups, I'm assuming there's a lot more than 1,000-2,000 concurrent players. There needs to be a multitude of potential good fits at any given point in time to even consider a matchmaking system. If there's not several teams of very comparable skill level ALREADY waiting in the queue, that ship of Gents is never going to form up and wait for basically nothing. Unfortunately, I really don't think this game has the numbers to do it right now. Hopefully in the future this point is moot.

Then onto the issue of any kind of a "rank/score system" in this game. If it exists and is publically viewable, you are going to have people trying to 'win' the ranking system. No matter what the metric for rank is, win/loss kill/death total games played, etc., you will have a group of players doing nothing but "grinding" that statistic until it's perfect. I could see the possibility of new groups doing in-house matches to boost their own win count. Or people refusing to play/rage quitting matches they cannot very obviously win. This will pretty much invalidate the ranking system. If a new group could jump in and artifically boost their ranking by gaming the system, what is the point of the ranking system?

 Second problem with ranking players would be detracting from actual team-work gameplay. Any point in time where someone is playing a match to boost an individual statistic rather than focusing on a teamwork spirit, it detracts from this game. We already deal with this in achievement farmers, and there is no real benefit from having a high level in game. Imagine the problem if there was another ranking, but one that had actual effect on matchmaking or leaderboards and what not.

Also I don't think trying to apply one ranking metric across all three classes would make sense at all.  What if there's an engineer who does NOTHING but tank the hull, but his regular captain is very highly strategic and meticulous with planning every move. If they're both on the same ship most of the time, even though one does basically nothing but click and the other puts out considerable effort and expertise every match, would the two of them deserve the same rating score if they decided to queue separately for matches?

The only way to make a ranking score that would NOT detract from gameplay and be able to accurately gauge skill would be to rate an entire red or blue team at once, with specific crew. That way, the only way to increase ranking would be by playing cohesively as a team, with no individual having any opportunity or motive to "go on their own" to boost their personal stats. Problem is, again, this game does not have the number of player to even begin thinking about a system like this. Not to mention the difficulty in putting together the exact same 8-16 people on a very regular basis. Not very likely.

So I have my own idea for a way to deal with "stacked" lobbies. If you enter a lobby and suspect the other team of being "stacked", decide if you want to fight against a "stacked" team. If you don't want to fight against a "stacked" team, find or create a different lobby. Problem solved.

Thomas:
First to Geno,

I should clarify that that is a hypothetical flow chart for how a queue/matchmaking system would possibly work. A lot of those systems are in the game (and that's good) and some others would have to be created. The overarching idea is to show it's possible to let players play with their friends, while also allowing for greater randomization and fair matches.




Next to Phoenix,

"Personally I don't see a problem with the game as far as stacking is concerned. If anybody joins and they see a high level crew they usually leave which leads to an empty lobby so you have people like me who are stuck in an empty lobby because we are high level..."

"...its about creating a team and developing as a team to be the best you can be and how can your team develop if you have to split up all the time to make it fair..."


You have actually illustrated some of the problem quite nicely, thank you.

Firstly you mention how your high skill team has to split up and work with new players to actually get the match going, and how that's not what you want to do. A very good point indeed. We don't want to force players apart from people they want to play with anymore than we want new players to stop playing after getting beaten by highly skilled and organized teams.

You want to make a great team and fight great opponents, showing off your skills. Shooting down rookies isn't nearly as exciting, and you don't get to be a better player by doing so.

And that's where matchmaking comes in. No longer do you have to sit in a lobby waiting for brave souls to show up. No longer do you have split your team just to get the ball rolling. You make your team, and the system finds enemies for you. Your team doesn't have to split up, and you'll be facing people who know their Spanner from their Heavy Clip. Still not good enough? Then you can always invite another clan for a match.


"Stop trying to make this game a ladder based system just leave it as it is, is it really that bad?"

I'm with you that the game should not be ladder based. I feel that splitting up the community into various chunks just isn't the right move, and would actually make finding matches more difficult. What I'm proposing is just using skill level to balance the teams. That's not saying everyone on the ship has to be between level 4-6, but rather that the average skill rating on each team should be similar. Meaning if you go into the random team queue, you could end up with a lvl 13, 2, 5, 6; and the other ship would have a similar range. (Of course I'm also proposing for a system that does a better job of evaluating skill).

So if you make your own team, and you're all lvl 10+, the system will try to find or generate a team with a similar average lvl.



"are there people leaving by the hundreds as they keep getting pounded on by high players not really, no. I play everyday and I rarely see more than 5 10+ players on during a weekday and any lower than that are usually just messing about in an ordinary game. There is no organised pub stomping you are seeing problems where problems do not exist."
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Now here's some more of the problem. Is the supposed pub stomping causing people to leave the game? You answer no, and then follow up by saying that you rarely see lvl 10+ players. Which is kind of contradictory. If new players stuck around longer, we'd have more mid-high level players. But are there hundreds of new players leaving the game? Yes actually.

http://steamcharts.com/app/209080#1y


That's a graph showing player numbers in GoIO over the past year, you can see high spikes during sale periods, followed by a rapid decline shortly after. During the recent October sale, the population rocketed over 2,000 players online at the same time. Before then it was at a steady 300 or so. Shortly after the sale period, the population drops back down dramatically; almost to exactly what it was before the sale.

You can see that player retention is a problem, particularly new players. This doesn't mean that getting crushed by highly skilled teams is the number one cause, but it is a thing that does in fact happen (I'm currently tracking the % of 'stacked' matches as well as the drop rate of teams that lose to a stacked team. I'm also not using the term 'stacked' in an offensive manner, just stating that one team holds a distinct advantage in experience and/or organization over the opposing team). Did you know that roughly 63% of the losing team in a 'stacked' match will drop out of the lobby?





@ dragonmere,

Everytime I hit enter, someone else responds. xD

I agree with you that the community is kind of small (see above). Part of my original proposal included this in the matchmaking. Where it would try to find a good match, and then start expanding the search to find the 'closest' fit. It may very well still be uneven, and that will reflect in the changes to rank/score post game. ie: if it is forced to match a group of amazingly perfect players against a team of people who keep shooting at their own ship, the winning team will have a negligible increase (if any) to their score/rank, where the losing team will have almost no (if any) decrease to theirs (assuming the better team won. If the underdogs get a victory, it would provide a large boost to them, and large decrease to the other team).


This is why the rank/score system would have to be carefully created. As I mentioned in my original post. >.> that no one read... *depressed*.
I also mention that any change to it could only occur in the matchmaking, meaning that if you did a custom match, it wouldn't make a difference. You'd have to punish people who leave more harshly, as well as making it easier to reconnect. I'll go ahead and try to create a hypothetical rank scoring system (different for each class) as an example of what I'm talking about later.


The system of avoiding stacked lobbies hurts the stacked team (making them wait for a long time or forcing them to 'bait' players in with colorful names). While forcing them to 'balance out' can force them to not play with the friends. And a lot of new players we used to have are not aware of the vast difference between themselves and the other teams of experienced players. With a queue/matchmaking system, they can slowly build up their skill as they get used to the game, and hopefully avoid the pub stomp.

Again, player retention. Our current system isn't very good at it. Maybe making things more balanced, and easier on everyone (high and low experience alike) will change that.

zlater75@hotmail.com:
Ok.. I don't have problems with hypothesis or suggestions but if i think it wouldn't work i will say that and if i think it works i'll support it. The game is based on teamwork generally and a team will also work differently all the time so it's not easy or maybe even possible to make a skilllevel that would work in teh long run and set a standard. Games are alive and change. People change and there are patches.
I just don't want to see limiting or labeling as it were an individuals game as it's team/crew based. Which makes this issue hard. If current options work i don't like a change that would impact the fun, freedom and specialisation of the game. But in the end that doesn't matter so much. Neither of us decide. That is for Muse and their game. They listen but they also decide and so far so good.

Thomas:
Possible Score/Rank System:
Here's one possible way this could work. It's just a concept, probably won't be adopted, and so obviously nothing is concrete, absolute, or un-debatable. We're also going to skip over the match-making concept.

The theory is to give each player a 'score' in each of their respective roles. In this system, it's a static score that is only changed during post match. The scores range from 0-2000 (totally arbitrary). They can go up or down a maximum of 50 points each match (again, arbitrary). Winning a match will increase your points (+personal score), while losing  match will decrease your points (55-personal score). The amount increased or decreased is based upon personal performance and some other factors. Now we math.



First we're going to take the (Avg Team Rank/Avg Enemy Team Rank) to get 'R'. So the higher your rank compared to the enemy, the larger R becomes. The lower your rank compared to the enemy, the lower R becomes.


Captain/Pilot
Depending on the match, the captains role is to keep the ship alive, kill the enemy, capture points, or defend points. Using those as the basis, we come up with this:

Damage Done/Total Damage * 30
(Damage Taken/Deaths)/(Total Damage Taken/Total Deaths) *30
(1-Deaths/Total Deaths) *30

Point Cap/Total Point Cap *30
Point Block/Total Point Block *30

Immediately you'll notice that all of these numbers end up as a ratio or % multiplied by 30 (30 is arbitrary). These numbers are then summed and divided by R (It will cap at 50, even if this number ends up higher). 30 was arbitrarily chosen because you're unlikely to get these numbers very high. For the pilot, that's all the damage done by your ship, taken by your ship. In a relatively even match, they should all be around .25 *30, which is 22.5 when all summed. If the match is perfectly even, R=1, and you'll get 22.5 points for winning, or lose 32.5 (for losing. Obviously). (In retrospect, that seems a little high for an even match, might need to lower the 30 to 20 or something). (Should probably toss in rebuild/repair for the captain/pilot too, with a low score modifier, ie: 5-10).

Why 55-personal score for the loser? Essentially this is so that even if you manage a magical '50', you'll still lose points for losing, even if it's not many. Most of these points are comparisons against the other ships, and highly dependent on your crew. This is just to give a number to add or subtract from your personal ranking.



Gunner
The gunners role is to shoot stuff, kill ships and components, and to a much lesser extant, keep things fixed. With that in mind:

Accuracy(%) * 20
Damage/Total Damage * 50
Component Kills/Total Component Kills * 20
Rebuild (explained below) * 5
Repair/Total Repair * 5


I'll explain the rebuild part below, because I got a little fancy with that. You'll see that the gunning takes a much higher precedent, but they can still get some points for rebuilding. I didn't do ship kills because that would just make gunners fight over the last shot. Instead I did components, which includes all sorts of happy things like engines, balloon, armor, and weapons. Then they'll still get points for damage. You'll notice it has a much higher number, this is because there's going to be engineers and such shooting as well, with lots of people dealing damage, the gunner can't expect too high of a % of the total damage. Then they're all summed, divided by R and still capped at 50. Again, numbers are arbitrary and will probably need to be reworked.



Engineer:
The engineers job is to keep the ship alive through repairs, rebuilds, putting out fires. They also keep the ship buffed and even go so far as to shoot down the enemy. Probably the busiest role.


Repair/Total Repair * 50
Rebuild (see below) * 20
Buff/Total Buffs (includes chem spray)* 10
Fires extinguished/Total Fires * 20
Accuracy * 5
Component Kills/Total Component Kills * 5
(1-Total Damage to Ship/Total Damage All ships)* 30



We're going to avoid explaining the rebuild and go from the bottom up. The 'total damage to ship/total damage all ships' is basically just a safety net for the engineer. There may be situations where their ship takes very little damage, giving them noting to repair/rebuild. So the lower damage the ship takes, the higher that value. Of course the more damage they take, the higher the other values should be (since there's stuff for you to repair/rebuild/put out). Buffs and chemical sprays take up a slot, but aren't very good for repair/rebuilding/ or even putting out fires. They should still get some points for using them, but not enough to make you go crazy with it and avoid helping your ship.

Engineers often act as secondary gunners and should receive some points for that. The numbers chosen might be a little low, especially if they're stuck on the gun a lot and don't need to go about fixing stuff. Wouldn't hurt for them to be higher (remember, arbitrary).

Finally we get to the 'rebuild' bit I've been building up. Rebuilds are nice, but I find them not as important as reaction time. Based off some of the achievements in the game, I thought it might work better to time them. Essentially you get 1 point for rebuilding within 5 seconds of something going down, 0.5 for rebuilding within 10, 0.3 for rebuilding within 20 seconds, and 0.1 after that. You then sum them and divide by the total number of rebuilds done on the ship. You shouldn't have to get the last hit on a rebuild, just help with it. This also ends up giving you a % which you multiply by a number. Then Sum it all up, divide by R and apply the result just as you would any other score. (still capped at 50).





This system uses a lot of comparisons to help set the scores. Essentially it's not how good 'you do' it's how good 'you do compared' to everyone else. Essentially if you gun poorly compared to the other people gunning, or repair not nearly as much as them, or can't capture/block as many points, you're going to gain less points for winning (because you're team essentially carried you), and you'll lose more for losing, since you shouldn't be rated that well.

It takes into account the average rankings on both teams, since it is a team game. If they're much higher ranked than you, you'll lose less points for losing, and win more for winning. But if you're a higher rank than them, it will be the opposite. The closer the rankings, the less impact R has.



Then with a proper matchmaking system, you can set up relatively even teams. Once the scores settle down (it will take players several rounds) players can be relatively confident their ranking is accurate. You do better, you go up. You do worse, you go down. All compared to other players.

-----------------------------------------------

With all that being said, the actual mechanics of how the rankings work should be hidden. This is just showing an example of how a system could work in this kind of game. I'd still try to have ranks shown, just so players know where they stand and what they're up against in a match. With the low population, players will likely end up against players who have a significantly higher or lower rank. The system is still set so that they won't be overtly affected by it, but it'll help them understand why the results were how they were. (There's other little quirks that would have to be employed, like reconnecting limits tweaked, punishment for leaving a match, etc)

zlater75@hotmail.com:
Can you give an example what it would do and why say 5 matches of 2 vs 2 ?

Seeing the match and skill number i come to think of bf3 which i played a couple years actively that also has something similar. But it doesn't work there. it's just something more individual that doesn't really tell the persons actual skill-level vs calculated skillnumber per map. The hitreg fluctuates badly, the weapon balance is lacking and how people play around you affects your own gameplay. Statspadding and attacking bases is common. It could have been an ok game but the extra fuss, leveling to 145, way too many achievements, unlocks and logging just kills it for the common casual player. And the game has squads but it's rare to see anyone do actual teamwork as they just focus on their own stats and play more than the real cooperation. the "do what it takes to achieve x of y". Partly reason for the scepticism along with other points already made.

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