Author Topic: "Was that match fun? Y/N"  (Read 12545 times)

Offline sparklerfish

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"Was that match fun? Y/N"
« on: November 11, 2014, 02:54:29 pm »
I feel like a lot of the changes that have been made recently to try to improve speed and balance have been at odds with what I would call "qualitative player experience".

What if, if only for data collection, we had a sort of "survey" after each match, where you were asked, "Was that match fun?" and you could check "yes" or "no".

Maybe I'll be proved wrong by this and we'll see that the majority of players really do stop having fun after three rematches, but one of the biggest failures of the matchmaker in my opinion is that while it is theoretically excellent at amassing and analyzing numbers, it cannot ask the extremely important question of whether or not players are enjoying themselves.  It cannot analyze the personalities of the players in the lobby and see if they are people I would like playing with.  It can't tell if maybe I actually still enjoyed a match even if my team got stomped.

Qualitative ≠ quantitative.

Offline Hoja Lateralus

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Re: "Was that match fun? Y/N"
« Reply #1 on: November 11, 2014, 03:39:00 pm »
I like that idea but it's not enough. I'd think more like:

Was that match fun? Y/N?

If not, what was the main reason:
a) balance
b) crewmembers (skills)
c) crewmembers (personal matters)
d) game mode*
e) something else [       ] <-place for answer

I try to avoid matchmaker at all costs.

*Crazy King in current state is unplayable, also fix ideas were sent to the Devs....

Offline sparklerfish

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Re: "Was that match fun? Y/N"
« Reply #2 on: November 11, 2014, 03:40:53 pm »
I think some people might get annoyed at having to fill out something lengthier (even if it's one extra multiple-choice question), but I would totally be okay with that.

And I suppose you wouldn't necessarily HAVE to answer it; just have it be there to answer if you want to share your feedback.

Offline Hoja Lateralus

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Re: "Was that match fun? Y/N"
« Reply #3 on: November 11, 2014, 04:32:54 pm »
I guess just in options "Do you want to give feedback about your matches? Y/N" kinda thing.

Yeah, in my opinion those reasons matter. It's completely different having a bad time because of that one lvl1 second gunner who decides to shoot flares all the time and having a bad time because your shipmates are 20-ish lvl and enemies are 45-ish lvl and you just get stomped 12:0 in a 4v4...

Offline Richard LeMoon

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Re: "Was that match fun? Y/N"
« Reply #4 on: November 11, 2014, 10:01:55 pm »
Yes/No/I will poison you while you sleep

Offline sparklerfish

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Re: "Was that match fun? Y/N"
« Reply #5 on: November 11, 2014, 10:09:09 pm »
Yes/No/I will mine you while you sleep

mines are a much better way to exact revenge.

Offline Indreams

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Re: "Was that match fun? Y/N"
« Reply #6 on: November 12, 2014, 11:21:20 am »
Yes! If Hamlet had a scene where the king was mined while he slept, I'd stop falling asleep during the play.


But to be on topic, what would the matchmaker do with all these datas collected? How would the matchmaker make better matches with these datas?

Offline Hoja Lateralus

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Re: "Was that match fun? Y/N"
« Reply #7 on: November 12, 2014, 11:30:52 am »
Matchmaker itself - nothing. But it would be very valuable data for Devs (so they can upgreade matchmaking).

Offline sparklerfish

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Re: "Was that match fun? Y/N"
« Reply #8 on: November 12, 2014, 03:05:26 pm »
Yeah I don't think it would help the matchmaker at all, but I think it might shed some light on things for the devs that they don't currently have any data on.

Currently every new system in place and every change made is based on cold statistics like wins and losses.  These, I feel, do not adequately reflect the most important statistic of all -- ARE THE PLAYERS HAVING FUN?

Offline Nietzsche's Mustache

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Re: "Was that match fun? Y/N"
« Reply #9 on: November 13, 2014, 03:10:39 pm »
I want to second this thread and I'll share some feedback as to why.

The whole point of the matchmaker, as I initially understood and had heard in the dev fireside chats, was to reduce the waiting time in lobbies before a game starts (and of course, doing so by adding a fancy algorithm and some animation that I've got to wait on BEFORE I wait in lobby). Adding the match timer is supposed to do the same thing. But there's a problem here.

What is the actual point of the lobby? Isn't it to set up our ships and our equipment, coordinate between captains, and strategize? After all, this is a strategic team-based game and when we haven't taken the time to stop and think about what we're doing AS A TEAM the game is significantly more frustrating to play. This is why we don't crew form as a single ship and then immediately queue the matchmaker to quick-join us as single ships, let alone quick join as we knew from many patches ago. And that's without even going into the benefits of hanging out in a lobby for abut 5-10 just socializing. That's how you make friends. And when you make friends, you learn each other's strategies, strongpoints and weakpoints in ways you don't when you're just flying solo with a bunch of randoms and thrown into a match in 200 seconds.

Now, I understand why you want to quicken that average lobby wait. It's still the #1 reason for negative feedback on steam, isn't it? I'm actually a little surprised it's not bugs, but ok. But here's the conundrum you have to face now: by lowering time spent in lobbies, you're necessarily negatively impacting the quality of the game. And this is something that I'm seeing quite visibly as someone who's played this game for about a year and a half: The quality of matches are significantly worse since matchmaking than before. My enemy's crews are usually disorganized, my enemies captains are disorganized, and teammates are disorganized. All with a consistency that I wasn't used to with the old system (even though it DID happen with the old system, but it was a lot easier to pile a bunch of experienced players into a lobby and just keep playing without having the worry about that god-forsaken queue dumping me back into a match with people of little experience.)

So, the whole point of having this criticism placed here is to remind ourselves what this game is. It is NOT Call of Duty, Counter Strike, Team Fortress 2, or the like. It is NOT a game where you can just jump in without giving a shit. (well, you can leave the shits at home if you like, but you really just can't jump in like that. :P ) And by trying to adjust the game to market it towards the FPS crowd, which is by and large the folks who are clamoring for "READY UP GUYS!" we're really undermining what makes the game so worthwhile for those of us who've had it for ages and keep coming back every night. Thus, I think if you actually attach some qualitative feedback to each of the matches, you'll find that even though matches are more balanced than they were previously, the game just isn't being played as well as it had previously, especially for those of us who've been around for a while.

Try it. See what you find.
« Last Edit: November 13, 2014, 03:12:44 pm by Nietzsche's Mustache »

Offline Hoja Lateralus

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Re: "Was that match fun? Y/N"
« Reply #10 on: November 14, 2014, 03:59:09 pm »
On Fireside Howard said that it is actually a great idea but it's pretty delicate because (as far as I understand) players can just have worse day and give bad marks and stuff. Howard said he will think about it. I will e-mail him the thread.

Offline Dev Bubbles

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Re: "Was that match fun? Y/N"
« Reply #11 on: November 14, 2014, 04:09:47 pm »
Hey Disaster, oh yeah, let me explain.  I like the idea for sure.  It's just that, implementing it in game may be a bit risky.  I thought about this before at Exit, and I looked at some games who did this.  And found that a lot of players just don't like to be bothered with some popup stuff in game that's trying to get this type of info.  More like, hey I'm in game, leave me alone and don't spam me with some popup survey-ish kind of thing.  That was the concern.  I would always welcome better data collection.  Love it.  Hope that makes sense.  Thanks!! 

Offline GeoRmr

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Re: "Was that match fun? Y/N"
« Reply #12 on: November 14, 2014, 04:16:52 pm »
Hey Disaster, oh yeah, let me explain.  I like the idea for sure.  It's just that, implementing it in game may be a bit risky.  I thought about this before at Exit, and I looked at some games who did this.  And found that a lot of players just don't like to be bothered with some popup stuff in game that's trying to get this type of info.  More like, hey I'm in game, leave me alone and don't spam me with some popup survey-ish kind of thing.  That was the concern.  I would always welcome better data collection.  Love it.  Hope that makes sense.  Thanks!!

You could totally add it the same way as rematch voting in the match end screen (I forget to vote half the time) - keep the UI slick without a popup and the players can can choose to rate the experience or not. And for the same reasons I forget to vote, people will most likely only remember to vote after memorable games that they truly did or did not enjoy.

Offline Hoja Lateralus

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Re: "Was that match fun? Y/N"
« Reply #13 on: November 14, 2014, 04:26:27 pm »
Pretty much what Geo said. Also make it something that you can turn off and on in Options.

Offline Dev Bubbles

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Re: "Was that match fun? Y/N"
« Reply #14 on: November 15, 2014, 09:29:58 am »
@Geo, I thought about this a bunch last night actually, and came to about the same conclusion you did.  If we do something, your way is pretty good.  Yeah it has to be optional, or people would probably be annoyed.  With something like a popup, it might be too in-your-face, and it could reinforce a negative experience just because people don't like that stuff, especially at potentially high frequencies, thereby producing a response bias in the surveyed results.  So I like this way better.  Let me note this down on Trello.  Thanks guys.