Team Stacking - Match Balance

[Kriegson]

-snip-

Simply put (And not speaking for myself. I see a lobby with 2 filled ships on one side, empty on my side, I turn around and leave)many people do not want to go browsing through to find a match with no pre-mades, checking teams to ensure they are the same skill level as they are and communicate with their crew to establish roles, sections, gear and a battle plan, and then coordinate that with the other ship.

No, the majority of first time players or people just hoppin on for a few probably want to hit quick match and hope for the best.

That said though, the playerbase isn't large enough for an algorithm that splits up the playerbase into chunks for matchmaking and is invariably far more complex in regards to cooperation than virtually any other game I can think of off the top of my head.

[zlater75@hotmail.com]

So we change tutorial and quick join button places but leave the names. problem solved. 

[N-Sunderland]

Make sure to keep this thread friendly, guys. Posts attacking certain clans or players are not acceptable.

[Dev Bubbles]

Making an appearance in another spirited thread!  Greetings everyone. 

Let's deal with some of the thoughts and ideas that I've read in the last 2 pages. 

1.  Is "team stacking" an issue?  I believe that it is.  And, after thinking through it for quite a while, we are implementing 2 things for next sprint.  A scrambling system and a slot and ship switch request system.  Let me not go into the details right now (we'll start talking about it more as soon as next week), as we are still working out the details of design.  But it is aiming to be a balanced approach that takes both sides (the people who want to hang out and play together, and the people who face consistent superior combat prowess) into account.  This system is also designed to make organizing clan, competitive, and dev matches a bit easier as well. 

2.  Should we implement a full on match making system?  Or an "advanced" player only match like the novice match?  This one is trickier given the way we currently set up matches and the way we do leveling.  With advanced players, the way to categorize this is very arbitrary given that our game is essentially skilled based, and even a dedicated crew and team can have players with wide ranges of levels.  And because a team can comprise of different roles, each with its own rank, and the entire team composition can have players with wide range of levels, this makes match making use cases more difficult to satisfy.  For co-op though, we are thinking to incorporate a more full on match-making system, with crew formation and party systems to complement for people who wanted dedicated crews and teams.  This is in part because the crew composition requirements are not as stringent for co-op, and also because this gives player quicker access to matches and shorter wait time.  But obviously this is something that we've been thinking about a lot, and are still thinking hard about. 

3.  How is the game doing in general.  I think we are doing pretty good all things considered.  Our concurrent base has gone up slowly over time, in the absence of dedicated and constant promotional pushes.  We've looked at attrition post events, and within 1-2 weeks, a comparable game generally has over 50% attribution or more.  Meaning that the spikes in the graph that Thomas pulled do occur and are not unusual.  In the long run, people have a ton of game choices to make, and games that take up people's time.  And we are actually really fortunate that we have a pretty awesome community and core group(s) of players that would want to spend time in our game over a thousand other games.  Can't tell you how much of an honor that is.  Most games launched last year don't get to sit here and chat with a still active and vibrant community.  Over the past year, looking back at some of the alpha screenshots we took, the game is quite different now for the better, and the biggest reason why I think is that we are at least a bit smart enough to listen to you guys.   

So while attrition has a lot of factors, some beyond our control, we do still have an obligation to keep improving, because some of it is because of the game itself, and are issues we need to overcome to make the overall game experience better. 

I think ultimately, the best way to grow our game is still for you guys to keep giving us great feedback, and for us to keep improving, and for you guys to keep helping us getting the word out. 

With co-op and Adventure Mode, there are in a lot of ways new games within the umbrella of GoIO, and I think that they will add more variety.  Right now, we are obviously still working on all kinds of stuff to improve Skirmish, but work on co-op has begun in earnest for a while now.  Hopefully we'll have stuff for people to try pretty soon. 

I hope that this covered a lot of the concerns and points raised here. 

I just want to say that, I take everyone's comments as constructive criticism and feedback.  Everyone here cares about the game and is passionate, and for me that's awesome to see.  When you guys are debating the points, just keep in mind that at the end of the day, everyone cares, so let's please respect each others' opinions. 

Have a great weekend!  Thanks!  Howard

[RearAdmiralZill]

Well as silly as this post has gotten (hence why I avoid it like the plague) I will say the Bounty system, as is, doesn't help things in it's current state.

[Dev Bubbles]

With the Bounty system, we're doing a couple of things to plug up some exploits we found that I agree are contribute to one-side teams a bit.  I'll let Keyvias chime in more as I don't want to steal his thunder hahahaha. 

[Kriegson]

So we change tutorial and quick join button places but leave the names. problem solved. 

Haha, if only.

And thanks for that update howard! I'm curious to see what you guys have in mind.

[Byron Cavendish]

-snip-

Simply put (And not speaking for myself. I see a lobby with 2 filled ships on one side, empty on my side, I turn around and leave)many people do not want to go browsing through to find a match with no pre-mades, checking teams to ensure they are the same skill level as they are and communicate with their crew to establish roles, sections, gear and a battle plan, and then coordinate that with the other ship.

No, the majority of first time players or people just hoppin on for a few probably want to hit quick match and hope for the best.

That said though, the playerbase isn't large enough for an algorithm that splits up the playerbase into chunks for matchmaking and is invariably far more complex in regards to cooperation than virtually any other game I can think of off the top of my head.

That sounds inherently lazy and I feel little sympathy for this mind set. How I read this is "We want as good a chance to win as the pre-mades, but we don't want to put the effort into it that they do. We understand they win because they communicate and organize themselves, but that's far too much work. I just wanna hop in a lobby take whatever tools I want, not say a word to my team and win like the pre-mades." So basically you want to punish our hard work and success granted from that hard work, because certain people are too lazy to put in the effort. Oh and again the simple answer of find another lobby isn't good enough, because it's just far too much work to go to multiple lobbies. Please...I've gone browsing through lobbies when my clan isn't on and it is not hard to find a non pre-made lobby. People intentionally come into pre-made lobbies because most of us are bounties.

And here is a little story to end on. When I first started this game my first taste of clans were being stomped by Gents and Ducks. I didn't get upset, I said "hey these guys are dam good, I'd like to be part of something like that". This inspired me to seek out the forums and join a clan, eventually leading to me being a competitive pilot. Some people take challenges as means of bettering themselves. Some whine and have temper tantrums. You choose which category you want to be in.

[Thomas]

I think Bubbles addressed all the issues very well, and the solution is a simple and effective one. Basically giving the community more tools to police itself and address issues of stacking as they arise. Whether they choose to do so or not is completely up to them, as it has always been. Not entirely perfect, but for the state of the game I think it's the best choice, especially with Co-Op/Adeventure Mode on the horizon.


And again, I have never been trying to vilify anyone. I know the competitive teams may feel attacked due to claims of team stacking, and some of those people might strike back and say it's the fault of the newer players challenging them. We have to understand that it is a thing that exists and happens, not entirely from the intentions of either party. I'm not aware of any clan that forms a team and starts a lobby with the straight up intention of pub stomping. But as lobbies exist and players form bonds, things will start to tilt in favor of one team over another.


Feel free to stop reading at this point.


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

Even with  this issue being resolved, I feel it necessary to post some of the information I gathered. Because frankly it took a lot of time. A lot of time. Too much time. D; (Only managed to get fraction of it done).

First we start off with the design of the survey. The objective was to gather data on matches and look into cases of team stacking and leave rates. This was done by taking a sample every five minutes of currently in progress matches. (You can't have a stacked match if it's not started). This did not include the novice matches (as they cannot be stacked) and was limited to 2v2 matches for simplicity.

Now we have to consider what -is- a stacked match? This definition can vary from person to person. Generally speaking it tends to be a team that sticks together and repeatedly wins by a high margin against opponents that change often (pub stomping). Some might say that it's players of a higher rank, while others would argue that only clanned teams count as stacked. To try and stay as objective as possible, we stuck only with 'rank'. This is not an ideal measure of player skill, but it's a good estimation. Then I set the bar to '40%'. If the difference between the teams weighted average ranks is 40% greater than the avg rank of the lower team, it counts as 'stacked'.

Why 40% and not just some flat number? Because of how leveling and ranks work. Each time you achieve a rank, you have to work much harder to reach the next one. And the more you play, the less difference there is in skill level (So a rank 1 and 2 might be very different in skill, but a 5 and 6 would be pretty close). The average ranks of each team was weighted so that the captain/pilot counted as more of the average. (Put a lvl 13 captain with a lvl 1 crew vs a lvl 1 captain with a lvl 13 crew; assuming they let the lvl 1 actually pilot the ship, the lvl 13 captain is far more likely to win).


Now onto the actual data. Tracking games for 2 hours and 40 minutes, and taking a sample every 5 minutes we come up with this chart:


This is a bar chart showing the weighted ratios of the teams. (HighTeamWeightedAvg/LowTeamWeightedAvg). Anything above 0.4 (40%) is considered stacked. As you can see, this amount fluctuates wildly in both the amount of matches occurring at the same time, and the ratios.

The greatest difference in rank was in this match:



Where you can see that even with the AI dragging down the average (AI's count as rank 0), this team is still much much higher than the opposition. Interestingly, this was not an organized pre-formed team.

Then we have this example of a perfectly balanced team. You'll notice these players cover a wide range of ranks:



And this is my personal favorite, the % of stacked matches occurring at any time:



You add up the number of 'stacked' matches and divide by the total number. Sometimes this goes down to 0, and sometimes all the matches are stacked.


Now obviously we may not all agree to that definition of a stacked team. 40% may be a bit low. Also remember that this is only an isolated example. We'd have to look at the game over a much longer period to get something that better represents the overall state. That's a lot of time for me to sit around and take screen shots of matches every 5 minutes, and with Muse having plans of their own; I won't bother.

[Keyvias]

Hey guys just wanted to pop in and talk on the bounty system.

On bounty I was worried that the targets would be stacked against the bounty's and spend their  weeks losing constantly, but it appears the opposite is true.  I've seen a lot of time all the criminals bunch up together and spend all day just destroying all comers.

While I do love the idea of these pirate coves I'm going to spend some time thinking of how to organically organize hunting parties, if you you have any thoughts, plots, or plans please email me at keyvias@musegames.com as I don't want to derail any harder than I already am.

[Cl ick to Ca p t ain]

What I've thought about doing in AK is having a Ship dedicated to hunting bounties, really the only way to battle the stacked WANTED teams, is with stacked teams of Bounty Hunters. I think maybe adding an emblem such as a jolly roger next to matches containing WANTED players (similar to the star you guys use on devgames) would help also.

[The Sky Wolf]

You're saying you don't like "Team Stacking"? You must mean... "Team Deathmatch", right?

It's got those keywords in it so you know exactly what you're getting yourself into before you join a session..

"Team" - A number of persons(plural) forming one of the sides in a game or contest
"Death" - The act of dying; the end of life
"Match" - A game or contest in which two or more contestants or teams oppose each other


So it's basically a [Team] of people working together simultaneously in a coordinated attack to bring [Death] to their enemy, using [Teamwork] during a particular [Match]. If they all attacked each other individually.. That's.. not really.. Teamwork..

What you're looking for is a "Duel". You simply want to duel to the death in an honorable and fair 1v1 fight to test your raw, solo skill level without any distraction.

What you aren't looking for is a test of leadership, cooperation, or grasp on large scale strategy.

[Kriegson]

-snip-

So if you were to pose a team of professional boxers against a team of moderately belligerent drunkards in a cage match, this would be perfectly acceptable, yes?

Not sure if what you have there is a straw man, but it certainly isn't a relevant argument in most respects. People aren't saying they don't want to play as a team (At least, I'm not) but rather they don't want the super MLG pro squad with 2 ships all on vent running their number crunched pre-coordinated strategies against a handful of newbies who pugged together a crew, match after match after match.

If the ships were team scrambled or the crews were scrambled this would at least give some semblance of balance and benefit as the super newbie crew can now closely observe and coordinate with the super MLG team and (in theory) learn a bit more about the workins of the game, aside from how it feels to get flamethrowerballonspammgoombastomped.

-snip-

Simply put (And not speaking for myself. I see a lobby with 2 filled ships on one side, empty on my side, I turn around and leave)

You choose which category you want to be in.

Unfortunately, without some form of direction in how to become better (even if it requires FORCING them in said direction) and nothing but crushing defeats without said knowledge, a person will care less and put less effort into the matches until eventually they just stop playing the game all together.

I know this, because ultimately this is what some of my friends and even I myself in the past have done. I've put some effort into finding a role that suits me, playing it well and avoiding lost causes that I know will only frustrate me. But not everyone will take such an effort unless they are given some guidance or incentive to do so. They want to play the game to have fun, and if they have fun, then they will invest themselves into it more.

It seems many forget how it was like just starting to play GOI =/

[Alistair MacBain]

So your friends stopped playing the game cause they faced "stacked" teams.
I think you guys mainly played together. This means that you were a "stacked" team. Even if it seems you guys didnt had the knowledge to really pupstomp you already made the first step.
What many so called "stacked" teams do is just playing together cause they like it more to play together than with some random dudes who just dont listen.
Cant speak for everyone but when im onboard with someone and i see him doing something odd i recommend sth different. If they are higher lvl i just ask for the reason but thats another point.
I even give basic hints to enemys when im in a so called "stacked" team.

[The Sky Wolf]

Bein' grounded to dust by multiple well coordinated enemy ships ought to teach the newbies a little something about teamwork. Because obviously from level 1 to level 15, we all get the same ships, weapons, items, and ammo... Therefore the only advantage to be had comes from teamwork, tactics and timing, so they shouldn't feel the game is so unfair.

...but you're right though, they do usually just get demotivated and quit like babies... instead of deciding to start making friends and capitalizing on the new strategy they just witnessed like I do... They just quit, and then Muse has less money to keep this amazing game advancing.


My final solution would be a new game type: Duel Matches

Just 2 players - 1v1 - First one to 3 points wins

Both newbies and pros alike would love that, and matches would be easy to find. That or Free-For-All.