Problems with matchmaking

[Wundsalz]

Matchmaking has been out for about two weeks now.
So far the system has failed to put me into an enjoyable match EVEN ONCE. That's right. I did not enjoy a single match your system tossed me into. Many matches are still rather one sided and those matches which are not one sided ALWAYS (not a single exception) involved either quitting co-captains, or co-captains which don't communicate whatsoever.

I do not like playing Guns of Icarus anymore.

Fix your shit!

[sparklerfish]

I only use crew form and friend join now.  Not because I hate balance, but because I like fun.

[Omniraptor]

Same. Having 50+ friends helps.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Yeah all those stomp matches I had were stomps because most of the other team left. There was no players to replenish. Heck one, lowbies took a galleon and charged in with it. When they exploded after being focused down by 3 ships, they left. Heck I was just sitting back with a sniper boat so I wasn't even in close to mine them and they left.

This is what happens when you have matchmaking with no consequences. MMOs purposely put cooldowns into their LFG queues to prevent players from bouncing from match to match. They usually kick in if a player leaves within 5 mins of group start. Its reasonable to put, say a 10 min cooldown on MM if players abuse it. It forces them to stay in matches.

Either that or what you do is you have a cooldown which increases the more time players abuse it. So they maybe only get to leave 3x before they have to sit there for the full length and then after that it takes an hour for it to reset.

[SaintR.L.]

Yeah all those stomp matches I had were stomps because most of the other team left. There was no players to replenish. Heck one, lowbies took a galleon and charged in with it. When they exploded after being focused down by 3 ships, they left. Heck I was just sitting back with a sniper boat so I wasn't even in close to mine them and they left.

This is what happens when you have matchmaking with no consequences. MMOs purposely put cooldowns into their LFG queues to prevent players from bouncing from match to match. They usually kick in if a player leaves within 5 mins of group start. Its reasonable to put, say a 10 min cooldown on MM if players abuse it. It forces them to stay in matches.

Either that or what you do is you have a cooldown which increases the more time players abuse it. So they maybe only get to leave 3x before they have to sit there for the full length and then after that it takes an hour for it to reset.

So how exactly would this deter good ol' fashioned turn-off-computer ragequits?

[Hoja Lateralus]

Matchmaking has been out for about two weeks now.
So far the system has failed to put me into an enjoyable match EVEN ONCE. That's right. I did not enjoy a single match your system tossed me into. Many matches are still rather one sided and those matches which are not one sided ALWAYS (not a single exception) involved either quitting co-captains, or co-captains which don't communicate whatsoever.

I do not like playing Guns of Icarus anymore.

Fix your shit!

This. Have my salute, Sir.
As sparklefish now I only use custom match option because matchmaking is no fun. Also situations where we have a great discussion in the lobby and timer just ends make me a sad panda :<

This is what happens when you have matchmaking with no consequences. MMOs purposely put cooldowns into their LFG queues to prevent players from bouncing from match to match. They usually kick in if a player leaves within 5 mins of group start. Its reasonable to put, say a 10 min cooldown on MM if players abuse it. It forces them to stay in matches.

Either that or what you do is you have a cooldown which increases the more time players abuse it. So they maybe only get to leave 3x before they have to sit there for the full length and then after that it takes an hour for it to reset.

Well, we would surely love to see something like this but for now it's not going to happen. Muse almost desperately needs new players, so we have to be caring about noobs untill player count will naturally drop from sale 900-ish to regular 200-300ish. Noobs would be like "Oh, this game make muh wait, dis stupeed, gunn' play some CoD, hurr durr" or sth like that

Luckily Muse agreed that making matches with clan members visible in custom matches is a good idea. So maybe next patch/hotfix we'll see some improvement, at least with matchmaking workarounds.

[Byron Cavendish]

Matchmaking has been out for about two weeks now.
So far the system has failed to put me into an enjoyable match EVEN ONCE. That's right. I did not enjoy a single match your system tossed me into. Many matches are still rather one sided and those matches which are not one sided ALWAYS (not a single exception) involved either quitting co-captains, or co-captains which don't communicate whatsoever.

I do not like playing Guns of Icarus anymore.

Fix your shit!

fuck it. no one cares about what we think.
we can never play conveniently with people again and we should get over it.
play competitive only or have play-dates with friends.
fuck this game. fuck fighting for it. just go play hawken. same fucking shit. some pew pew some teamwork and it's the same ovaries-busting work to organise a good lobby so why bother.
it's any game now and i know it's hard to accept.

but oh how wonderful the new players are so pleased.
after the sale it's back to 30-300 always.
last sale we had what? 1.5k? meant nothing. so this means nothing either. just to rain all over your enthusiasm over the numbers (of what? 700?) online.
breaking news. people buy cheap games! no shit.
the only thing good about this is that some goes to charity. but none of you cared.

Both these posts mirror how I feel and the same conclusions I have made. The game is super frustrating to play as a pilot, if I want to set up a pick up crew. And when I've tried solo queuing my gunner, the majority of times my pilot quits mid game after I've begged for arcs. Matchmaking was supposed to create lobbies of equal skill levels, but all they've done is create balanced mixed teams, so each side has equally frustrated vets. After a few days of this I concluded it's just not fun. If I wasn't in a clan, I wouldn't play this game, and if I were new, I would never stick with it. I have resolved to now only play competitively and when I can create a full pre-made clan team. Matchmaking has done a good number on any passion I have for this game. I am concerned that in the long run this will have killed this game.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Yeah all those stomp matches I had were stomps because most of the other team left. There was no players to replenish. Heck one, lowbies took a galleon and charged in with it. When they exploded after being focused down by 3 ships, they left. Heck I was just sitting back with a sniper boat so I wasn't even in close to mine them and they left.

This is what happens when you have matchmaking with no consequences. MMOs purposely put cooldowns into their LFG queues to prevent players from bouncing from match to match. They usually kick in if a player leaves within 5 mins of group start. Its reasonable to put, say a 10 min cooldown on MM if players abuse it. It forces them to stay in matches.

Either that or what you do is you have a cooldown which increases the more time players abuse it. So they maybe only get to leave 3x before they have to sit there for the full length and then after that it takes an hour for it to reset.

So how exactly would this deter good ol' fashioned turn-off-computer ragequits?

It won't, it just makes sure they can't do it over and over to multiple people. That is where rage quitters get off. They rage quit a match because they can easily move to another more easier match with no consequences. Remove that ability and the rage quitter has to sit there waiting. They don't like that. Often times they have little to no patience. They're more than willing to put up with a battle than they would to sit waiting for a timer to tick down. Even if it may be faster to quit and sit in a timer, the need for instant gratification won't allow them to see that.

Problem comes in with how do you treat disconnects/etc? The reconnect timer is helpful but you are bound to have some caught by the system. Unless of course, you allow reconnects, or as said, you limit the rage quit timer to 5 mins. Meaning they have to sit in the match for at least 5 mins before they can rage quit without a timer. Course you could increase that time if it ended up being too little or too much.

[SaintR.L.]

It won't, it just makes sure they can't do it over and over to multiple people. That is where rage quitters get off. They rage quit a match because they can easily move to another more easier match with no consequences. Remove that ability and the rage quitter has to sit there waiting. They don't like that. Often times they have little to no patience. They're more than willing to put up with a battle than they would to sit waiting for a timer to tick down. Even if it may be faster to quit and sit in a timer, the need for instant gratification won't allow them to see that.

Personally I think you could also create an incentive to stay in your match by putting a time restriction on when you can join a new game after quitting a game. Even if you logged out, closed the program, or outright turned off your computer you would still not be able to join a new match after logging in again until the time penalty is up.

Is that what you meant in your previous post? I was a bit unsure at what you meant. I don't play those kinds of MMO's and I'm not sure what you mean by time limits before being able to leave.

Problem comes in with how do you treat disconnects/etc? The reconnect timer is helpful but you are bound to have some caught by the system. Unless of course, you allow reconnects, or as said, you limit the rage quit timer to 5 mins. Meaning they have to sit in the match for at least 5 mins before they can rage quit without a timer. Course you could increase that time if it ended up being too little or too much.

With the idea I mentioned above, the grace rejoin time seems to be fine as you'll be simply going right back to the game you were in instead of joining a new one. If the connection problem persists past the grace rejoin time, waiting to join a game is not that big a deal. The rejoin time is a few minutes at the highest I've seen and waiting a few more before being able to join another game is not that big a deal for someone who just wants to play and will stay in a game. This is dependent on the time penalty of course but if you're dc'd for that long you're probably not going to come back right at the second the rejoin time limits is up.

[Mezhu]

I assume the reason why we keep getting put with ppl <lvl 10 (except from their obvious abundance) is that MM considers a lvl 8 player with 70% win ratio to be as capable as a lvl 40 with the same win/loss. Thing is, a game's outcome depends more on experience rather than actual skill, and it's only after a significant amount of games that actual skill becomes discernible and matters more than playtime. A quick solution, as others have suggested, would be to have people below a certain average level be put into a different matchmaking pool, and lift this restriction only in cases of low population.

I'm pretty sure that with time, if proper tweaks are made to the MM system (restrictions it places, rating deviation it allows, factors it includes when calculating rating etc), and as each players' rating stabilizes, average lobby quality will improve. Eric has, after all, already stated that the future goal would be to allow matching players only from the same 'leagues' or skill tiers. This combined with a stricter matchmaker has to quarantee some lobby balance and quality, or at least so I hope.

[GeoRmr]

Oh, this game make muh wait, dis stupeed, gunn' play some CoD, hurr durr

I for one do not want this kind of player to continue playing - these people have already bought the game and paid money to muse so IMHO its fine if they go back to play some CoD and never return.

[GeoRmr]

I assume the reason why we keep getting put with ppl <lvl 10 (except from their obvious abundance) is that MM considers a lvl 8 player with 70% win ratio to be as capable as a lvl 40 with the same win/loss. Thing is, a game's outcome depends more on experience rather than actual skill, and it's only after a significant amount of games that actual skill becomes discernible and matters more than playtime. A quick solution, as others have suggested, would be to have people below a certain average level be put into a different matchmaking pool, and lift this restriction only in cases of low population.

I'm pretty sure that with time, if proper tweaks are made to the MM system (restrictions it places, rating deviation it allows, factors it includes when calculating rating etc), and as each players' rating stabilizes, average lobby quality will improve. Eric has, after all, already stated that the future goal would be to allow matching players only from the same 'leagues' or skill tiers. This combined with a stricter matchmaker has to quarantee some lobby balance and quality, or at least so I hope.

Do you really think we have enough players to split the matchmaking pool? We barely have enough to run it as is - during peak time after a sale...

[GreenBreeze]

Herein lies the main issue with matchmaker in my opinion. Currently, with the population boon of a steam sale, games are starting quickly, albeit poor quality games. Once the population dies down, as it inevitably will, I don't see how matchmaker can possibly do what it is intended to do. If it cannot create a fun game for everyone right now with 700+ people in the pool to pull from, then how can it possibly work when there are 70 in the pool?

[Mezhu]

I honestly think we do. As I keep saying, we have enough high skill/level players that are simply always split between too many different running games instead of being pulled together..

[Richard LeMoon]

The largest issue with MM (other than it does not work) is that you are out of the pool once you are in a lobby. If the matchmaker included EVERYONE in the pool, except for those in global lobby and in a match, it would be able to recommend better lobbies. If it did, you would get a popup like:

"We have detected a lobby better balanced for your skills. Would you like to join?"  [Yes/No]

It would then show you what your position in the new lobby would be without actually putting you there, and ask if you want to stay or go back.

Problem of diluted highly-skilled players in not fun matches solved.