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Problems with matchmaking
Spud Nick:
Too many restrictions might cause the balance to be off. I have been in a few lobbies were experienced players realize the match is stacked but can't attempt to balance it because they can't swap ships with the other team.
Mezhu:
Relying on players' good will in balancing the games is more of a problem than a solution
GreenBreeze:
--- Quote from: Wundsalz on October 25, 2014, 04:59:17 am ---just take a look around what other games with matchmaking do! Many mobas have got a way larger player base and only need to match 10 players which are sort of on par, rather than 16 which are needed for GoIO.
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I believe here lies the crux of the problem. GOI just does not have a large enough playerbase to make a matchmaking system work effectively. In order for MM to really work you need a large pool to draw from.
Squidslinger Gilder:
Mez one of the big reasons Muse pushed MM on us is because they wanted to do away with the lobby list for performance reasons. When people would pull up the match list, it would require time and resources to poll the servers. MM gets around that.
Honestly, I think the other reasons were secondary but time will tell. They wanted that performance boost and were willing to risk enraging the community to do it. Will it pay off in the end? Dunno.
Other games run MM systems that aren't as aggravating. Awesomenauts comes to mind. However, that is a totally different game. Queuing up solo or in a group is completely fine. You don't need a lobby or forethought.
GOIO is more liken to say, original Ghost Recon or Rainbow 6. In those you spent time in a mission setup making sure your team as prepped to handle the mission. Heck original Rainbow 6 spent ages in prep before you ever got into a mission. What Muse seems trying to do is take a game that is designed for preparation and turning it into CoD, without a full effort being made to make it CoD. If you are removing the mind from GOIO then you gotta fundamentally change the entire game to match to the point an 8yr old with attention problems can pick it up and think he's OP. So, remove classes, just make everyone the same, add killstreaks and kill cams, DLC everything, and then rake in the dough from the mindless. Imagine those old FPS games with MM added. Zomg it would be a nightmare because 1 hit = 1 kill in those. Without planning or forethought you die. Rambo players were the ones who got kicked from servers.
EA did this with Battlefield after Bad Company 1 and it royally pissed off people like me who did not want a dumbed down game. So they back pedaled and shifted more of the classic gameplay to hardcore mode.
If Muse is part trying to attract larger audience and increase retention among new players by catering to twitch players, then the only hope we have is they patch in an actual veteran mode where many of the issues are resolved. We can play a more flexible game while they play restrictionfest.
shaelyn:
--- Quote from: Milevan Faent on October 25, 2014, 12:31:56 am ---You, my good sir, have earned a place on my "I must crew with you" list. Singing Still Alive is hilarious XD
--- End quote ---
Miss, actually, and I look forward to it.
--- Quote from: Mezhu on October 25, 2014, 03:57:56 am ---Everyone finds joy in different aspects of the game, there's no arguing that.
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no, there isn't any arguing that. frankly, it looks to me like the player base is split down the middle in their opinions, and neither one is wrong. ...and no, the new matchmaking system is really not making anyone happy - and I'm pretty sure Muse is aware of that.
Frankly, at first I thought matchmaker should be largely to make quick play more prominent for those who don't want to search. when I actually got my hands on it in the dev app, I was pretty much shocked and at the time, suspected I'd have to drop the game. this game has a great community, and with all the restrictions to balance the matches, it pulls the community aspect out of the game. when Howard told me it was to prevent stomping, I loosened up on my stance quite a bit...but yeah, it's not working, and I fear the kind of sacrifices that'll have to be made for it to work even decently, let alone well.
the singing match was just an example... here's perhaps something easier to relate to: I work really well under captains that give me a lot of direction. I have several pilots on my friend's list that I fly with regularly because they divvy up roles between the crew well or keep in constant communication about what they need done when. those are typically the matches I thrive in. so yeah, I still want to be able to crew with the people that, when I'm flying with them, we got some kind of good chemistry or flow or direction, whatever you want to call it, and I (if not the rest of the crew too) kick more butt as a result. there's a lot of different situations in the game that make it rewarding or fun, and I have greater potential to have the rewarding or fun experience with flexibility than with balance.
argh. the way to appease both is probably to have two separate systems that don't really interact with each other (a match list that doesn't show matchmaking lobbies, and matchmaking doesn't fill in to the match list unless the person using matchmaking ticks a checkbox that says they don't care about balance and the matchmaking lobbies are all full), but our player base is wayyyyyyyyyy too small for that one. I dunno though, maybe that's a start of an idea of something that can be done (and a nightmare to program, probably). if matchmaker kept up a match or two that could only be filled by matchmaker, not crew form or anything else, and those using the matchmaker could select that as their preferred match option, just like they can select 2v2 or Crazy King, that could be a thing. or if the all the lobbies that matchmaker makes are restrictive, and only the custom matches aren't - and they stay not restricted when opened to matchmaker - again with the preference thing to include custom matches in match maker's search.
anyway. I'm trying to pull ideas out to make both sides happy and it's probably not going to work, but I'm trying, anyway.
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