Main > General Discussion
Ship Scrambling and Other Upcoming Features
Asteria Bisset:
In all honesty, I don't think I'll mind the Scrambled Matches. I'm thinking that it won't be very helpful in 2v2 because in that scenario, you are guaranteed to swap ships regardless of which one gets moved to what side. There's no random aspect behind it. You know it will happen and everyone will become upset and unhappy about it if you know swapping will turn out badly for both sides. Part of the fun of scrambling the teams is not knowing who's getting shifted where and how you're going to shift your strategy to compensate. This aspect of scrambling is completely lost in 2v2 and it doesn't enhance or better the gameplay in that gamemode.
In a 3v3 match or a 4v4, swapping ONE ship from the opposing team becomes more meaningful but also doesn't become entirely detrimental. You will have two ships that will possibly cooperate and coordinate along with the chance to forge a new friendship with your "new" teammates. The teams though still have at least one ship they'll cooperate with if they like each other even when it's scrambled. The spontaneous and random aspect of scrambling is retained. You don't know what ship you're getting from the lot but you won't hate the situation automatically if you're being a good sport about it.
Though, this certainly is best case scenario, I'll admit. I actually think it's worth a shot in 3v3 and 4v4 to see how people deal with it but not so much in 2v2. Unlike in 3v3 or 4v4, 2v2 matches aren't as difficult to fill in and you can forego scrambling in them just to keep a room-type that won't scramble for the people who are on the side to not scramble the rooms.
I know this isn't exactly the best solution and it won't please everyone but at least it's some kind of compromise.
TL;DR: Don't scramble 2v2. Scramble 3v3 and 4v4 since it could actually work well in the larger rooms. You can then determine if you want to enable it in 2v2 after scrambling in the larger rooms for awhile.
Keyvias:
Hello Everyone,
We're always taking ideas on how to do that better and please shoot them to feedback@musegames.com so I can record them in our project master to discuss with the entire team.
Differing opinions aside, we're not putting this into the game tomorrow. We brought it up to talk about because we hear complaints day in and day out about stacked lobbies and we want to do something to improve general quality of life.
The scariest part of those complaints? We hear them once per person and nine times out of ten they don't log back into guns. (something we can and do look at)
Even worse, most people don't send us a handy little email when they stop playing our game, it simply sits on their steam library collecting dust. We understand that gamers hop from game to game, it’s basic human nature, but we want to do our part to make sure people don’t leave simply because they’ve spend the last hour and a half being completely wrecked.
That's the reason we want to make this a high priority because keeping organized groups happy is a prime goal, but making sure newbies have a chance to taste that victory or play with the great players is also important to us so they'll stick around, join and create clans, and allow more to happen.
So let's have a serious discussion about making this place more newbie friendly. I'm not saying let's bubble wrap every door knob, but we might have to put some plastic covers on some outlets.
First things first, let's test the scramble. Not in production, Guns of Icarus Online will remain the same, but in Dev app. Let's test organized teams being scrambled over and tell us how it feels playing with a new ship on your side.
If it feels like we've broken the entire game, we can work with that information. At this point it is a lot of gut feelings. We have our gut feeling this will be positive and many of you have a gut feeling that this won’t be good. Let’s get some info and put it to the test.
We can set it to a swap after one win in the system and get a better feel for what it's like to be switched over.
That way we can look at this with data and not change any expectations in the game. But having the option turn into a requirement or vice versa will cause more issues and uproar in game than in the dev app.
geggis:
--- Quote from: RearAdmiralZill on November 16, 2013, 11:28:47 am ---You misinterpret what we mean when we say we wish to stick with a good team. If I get into a lobby by myself, have a random crew and random ally captain who listens and is generally inviting, then that to me is a good team. Good team does not = Scrimmage team (aka all friends/clan buddies).
Then on the other side, you have one decent boat, but then one that has the unresponsive captain with two gunners, and even the captain would be a gunner. His boat is all harpoons. Normally those ships dissolve pretty fast because they cant figure out why they lose all the time, despite our advice to remedy it. Then the forced swap happens. The two decent guys team up, and im left with a mix bag. You aren't balancing anything. You just trade from a team that can potentially win to a team that is pretty much dead when the game starts. This is why people will leave 95% of the time to make a new lobby. We aren't actively giving the finger to the community we have for so long tried to foster since beta.
--- End quote ---
Yeah, I understand by good team you don't mean scrim team.
You're not balancing anything in that particular scenario, no. You're never going to balance a 2v2 with three crews of similar experience/ability and one that is outright uncooperative. But a scenario where you've got an experienced team versus a team made up of a screwing around joke crew and a crew composed of newcomers that are wanting to have an honest to god match will be a different story. That's going to be stomp after stomp if teams remain the same and eventually people are going to drop out. If they're scrambled then the new crew that wants to play properly and learn (and, y'know, enjoy the game) gets a much better experience and sticks around. Yes, one of the winning crews will get lumped with the bad apple crew, but come on, which ever way you cut it, it's going to be a much more positive experience for new players who would otherwise have walked away never to come back. If there are two bad apple crews then at worst you get a supplemented 1v1 with your friends. I've rarely, if ever, encountered two bad apple crews on one team though and I'd still rather have them split up for more balanced games.
Surely the organised/experienced players who are wanting to stay with their friends no matter what will just organise friendly scrims independently seeing as they more likely have the connections, friends, clanmates -- as well as the time and inclination -- to do so? It seems ridiculous to me to punish the pub game crowd because they aren't organised enough. Pub games are wildly inconsistent by virtue that they're open to all. New players, dabblers, returners. They need everything they can get to get them into good games and playing well so they keep coming back. I played recently with a bunch of level ones who were bloody brilliant but it would have broken my heart to see them ground into a paste because the winning team wasn't prepared to sever their bonds in the name of good sportsmanship. Stomping and the prospect of allied crews abandoning a game just because they got scrambled is only going to leave a sour taste. And I really don't like the notion that the scramble feature will cause/force this kind of behaviour in allied crews. That's a choice, and a group one at that.
Besides, I don't see how stomping can be fun or practice, and leaving the lobby to start another isn't going to solve that either unless you've got a stable of friends to invite. But if you haven't, you're just making more people wait across more games, and there's nothing to say the new lobby won't fill up with more 'stompees' anyway. Then what are you going to do? Keep on stomping until you get scrambled again until you open another lobby? That just sounds like really bad form to me.
While I like the idea of making scramble optional at new game (options are good), giving that option may just keep the door open to stomping by the very people who are okay with stomping but not okay with scrambling. Pub players will go wherever there are games and if more non-scramble games are opened by more experienced players wanting to play together and 'practice', then we're back to stompsville again.
I think Asteria raised some great points on the implications of this feature on 2v2 versus 3v3 and 4v4.
Captain Smollett:
What's in a name?
I think some aggrivation would have been avoided by naming the feature something other than "scramble", the term used in the context of a co-op game puts the reader immediately on the defensive regardless of what they might have otherwise thought of the idea. Something more neutral like ship swap balanceing feature would have probably avoided some headaches.
That being said I think the optional crew swapping and ship swapping should go in as soon as possible, since they're long awaited features, while everyone debates the merit of the balancing mechanic.
It's a hard sell telling players they're being forced to play nice on the playground, changing the name might at least foster a more neutral debate.
dragonmere:
--- Quote from: Keyvias on November 17, 2013, 04:33:46 am ---we hear complaints day in and day out about stacked lobbies … nine times out of ten they don't log back into guns. (something we can and do look at)
--- End quote ---
I've purchased GoIO for about 10-15 people. Real friends and old Cohort members. Good people, all. The VAST majority (honestly, every person, now that I think about it), joined up with us, played for an evening or two, then never logged back in. They simply didn't like the game. At all. Slow, boring, shallow. I don't agree, but I can see where they're coming from. This just isn't a game that everyone is going to love. It’s just the subset “Wow this game sucks it isnt fair its stacked and sucks im quitting forever and theres no boarding” is more vocal than the “eh, cool game, but not for me. Peace out.” set. Correlation does not imply causation.
Perhaps your game isn't the wide-spread attention grabber you seem to think it is. It's a niche game. Bringing friends, Cohort members, and people from other games into GoIO is damn near impossible for a reason. The overwhelming majority of people who try this game are not willing to stick with it under any circumstances. I've only had luck recruiting for GoIO from GoIO; new players who have already played and enjoy the game, and have already decided to stick with it for whatever reason before I came in contact with them. Everyone else quits. Stacked matches have nothing to do with it.
--- Quote from: Keyvias on November 17, 2013, 04:33:46 am ---That's the reason we want to make this a high priority because keeping organized groups happy is a prime goal,
--- End quote ---
How? If you are actually trying, you’re failing with me, ~90% of my group, and some other groups I've talked to. I can think of nothing that was added with the primary effect of benefiting established teams.
The proposed clan system was something I was happy about. When it came out, it was simply 4 bracketed characters. I was not happy. The proposed 'competitive scene' was something I was happy about. But, seriously, it's just a non-integrated non-interactive webpage. Almost all competition is still restricted to weekends between 1-5PM. There is still NO competitive scene at 10:00PM weekdays. This is why I play pub games. You give me no option. Finding other clans to fly against is, quite honestly, a major pain. See above about useless clan 'system'.
If organized teams are a priority, the issue shouldn't be "What can we do to force organized teams to not be organized?" but "What can we do to make sure organized teams will be able to find a good opponent?" Finding an answer to either would solve your pub stomping problem, but only the second is going to make me happy. You've chosen to focus on the first. This makes me very, very unhappy.
I've been waiting with baited breath for months for something to help organized groups, and I've seen nothing usable.
--- Quote from: Keyvias on November 17, 2013, 04:33:46 am ---making sure newbies have a chance to taste that victory or play with the great players is also important to us so they'll stick around, join and create clans, and allow more to happen.
--- End quote ---
I'm all for helping new players learn, get better, and win. But if the newbies get to 'taste victory' exclusively because you're gimping organization and competition, how does that victory taste? If this game isn’t supposed to be team-oriented and competitive, I’ve made a huge mistake, and should probably just shut up now, and move on to something else.
You can post "But it is team oriented!" all day, but with each update I'm starting to think this is geared to be a casual pick-up game only. Recent ship and weapon balance, and now scramble, strongly support my hypothesis. I'm not interested in this being a casual noncompetitive game.
--- Quote from: Keyvias on November 17, 2013, 04:33:46 am ---Let's test organized teams being scrambled over and tell us how it feels playing with a new ship on your side ... having the option turn into a requirement or vice versa will cause more issues and uproar in game than in the dev app.
--- End quote ---
This requirement/option mentality is the main problem I have with your method of "balancing". You always seem to lean towards required. Guns balance, for example. You decided one setup is being used too often or efficiently, so rather than tweak things so there are more viable options, you gimp the setup into the ground so people are required to use a new setup. As it’s suggested, rather than give options to find suitable competition, you’re requiring us to play non-organized teams. This sucks.
Why do you even bother posting on the forums if the stance is "I can see the majority want it to be an option, but still lets try it our way! I got a really good feeling about our way!" I see the same call-for-response then dismissal in the gun balance threads. "Just try it our way! We got a good feeling about this!" I'm all for you developing the game the way you see fit, but please don't ask for our opinions if you don't actually want them. It just makes people upset. Obviously, myself included.
In short... I am capable of putting together an awesome team. The mechanics of the game and makeup of the playerbase do not allow me to find suitable competition 99% of the time. Where does the problem lie; In the awesome team, or the incapable game? Why are you just trying to break up the team rather than do anything to actually fix the game?
Supporting the idea that organized play is the same as poor sportsmanship and somehow ruining the game is a terrible idea in my opinion. I’m incredibly surprised that this is now MUSE’s official stance. It will most likely end up being the death of this game for me. Organization and tough competition absolutely must be the ultimate goal, not prevented at all costs through game mechanics.
Tl;dr Not happy.
--- Quote from: Captain Smollett on November 17, 2013, 11:54:43 am ---What's in a name? ...changing the name might at least foster a more neutral debate.
--- End quote ---
I'm entirely done being neutral. Breaking up teams is breaking up teams. It goes against everything that I have ever defended about the 'true nature' of this game. How does the saying go? If it walks like a duck...
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