I am begging, please add minimum level requirements to pilot...

[tramlaw]

As an *aspiring* pilot, here's my thought...

Why not limit matchmaker to plus or minus 10-15 pts.  So for myself, if I join a game as pilot then the only other people to join my game, via matchmaker, would be level 1 - 14 (or 20).  Then you can also learn, against the (semi-)higher levels, but not get your ass handed to you buy the vets.  Would also, sort of, solve the problem of level 9's ending up in a match with *all* level 30 plus pilots.  Might already do this, I don't know.  If it does...let me know. I haven't tried because I don't want to be thrown into a lobby with higher level pilots...yet.

Of course, there comes the problem of people joining as one class (to get into the game) then switching.  That's easy...disable the switch if the class is more than the 10, or 15, pts.

Of course this only applies to matchmaker.  Joining through the custom game lobby/invite would negate that.  That way, clans could still play/train together.

Yeah, the problem of an upper level captain joining a rookie match just for the *fun* of annihilating them but, if you feel ok with that then so be it. And if a lower level joins an upper match, through custom game...and stays, then he deserves it.

Let's make matchmaker do some good.

[Hoja Lateralus]

Matchmaker doesn't work based on levels, it works on number of your wins and losses combined with the "skill" of oponents you are facing with. And yeah, it is supposed to match you with right people to begin with, but is limited due to low playerbase (and in my opinion its' system of measuring skill doesn't really work).

I think potentially matchmaker could have a choice option for how long we are willing to wait for the game (which means - how much we care about time and how much about balanced games). Just in options of matchmaker something like:
"How much can you wait for your game?
[ ] I want to play now!
[ ] I can wait up to 5 minutes
[ ] I can wait up to 10 minutes
[ ] I can wait more than 10 minutes "
This could set the matchmaker's priority for that player/group, but then again, dividing the playerbase (although remember 3-rematch limit? ;]).

[Chang'e]

I think back to when I first played the game. I bought the game wanting to be a pilot. Not running around whacking things with a Mallet or shooting other ships out of the sky, but standing behind the helm, flying the ship through the sky, and all the cool things I thought a pilot could do. Yeah, I was a complete scrub when I started. I thought putting the ship on full throttle would damage the engines, and I had no idea what good any of the helm tools were for me. But I eventually learned, and I guarantee I would not have stayed with this game if I saw I couldn't even be a pilot until I played several hundred matches.

I bought Disgaea wanting to deal out ludicrous amounts of damage on ludicrously overpowered characters. That takes many hours of grinding. I bought Saint's Row 3 wanting to run around fucking up who/whatever the hell happened to be in the general vicinity. To do that without getting promptly rekt by cops/rivals, you'll need to do some levelling. I bought WoW wanting to go on epic adventures. Once again, that requires some progression.

Few, if any, games let you access all content from the get-go. Sometimes you have to level up more, sometimes you have to git gud enough to kill that boss, sometimes you must construct additional pylons. This is a ridiculous argument against a feature that would reduce suffering for everyone else.

[Chang'e]

One of the main problem I had with novices was that they had voice chat off. Would it be possible to just put a small symbol near the name of people who don't have voice chat activated. By this I mean cannot hear me at all, I don't really mind if they don't have a microphone as long as I know if I need to communicate with text chat or voice chat.

That would be nice. Although it seems like every deaf novice I encounter can't be bothered to read text chat either... Is it really that hard to read text chat mid-game? I mean, I'm an autist with ADD and I can do it just fine!

[Schwalbe]

I mean, I'm an autist with ADD and I can do it just fine!

Welcome to the club, sonny-jim.