Guns Of Icarus Online
Admin => Dev App Testing => Topic started by: awkm on February 21, 2014, 04:36:46 pm
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Now that it's in Dev App, people have been worried. I've spoken with many people individually and I feel like a broken record right now. So here's everything we have planned.
Not all the major features are currently in. We are only testing the ability of matchmaking itself and if can actually work.
Problems to Solve and Goals of Matchmaking:
Matchmaking, ultimately, is an to improve player retention and user experience flow. There are a variety of problems that matchmaking looks to solve, a small subset includes:
- Ease of finding a match
- Information overload (related to above)
- Time for match to Ready Up
- Teams being stacked
- Reduce performance overhead
Having a matchmaking system directly solves all those issues to some degree (we have more things to do with match readiness for the future).
That's the gist of it. All of these didn't happen overnight, if we could do it overnight that would be fantastic and Adventure Mode would be done tomorrow. We took a lot of time planning this out and thinking of all the issues that will arise with matchmaking. It took an equally long time to implement the basic fundamentals for matchmaking. So we need to test that first.
For now, matchmaking will try to make crews of 1 Captain/Pilot, 2 Engineers, and 1 Gunner. For other variations, you can use Crew Formation and join matchmaking with a custom crew composition.
Ramifications of Matchmaking
There are lot of things that will change or disappear. Here are some of those things (both what we thought of and concerns from you) :
- Finding people
- Match list
- Finding a game you like (map etc.)
- Socializing
We're hoping to remove Match List. This is probably the most controversial step and many of you have threatened to leave if we do it, but please believe us when we say that we have a plan to solve all the complaints coming out of this. The Match List, for us, is actually very cumbersome. It's a huge performance overhead and performance bottleneck so getting rid of it will help us a lot in tuning other aspects of the game/servers.
We want to make it easier for you to find a match. By using the various preference toggles, Crew Forming, or joining matchmaking on your own we hope that new and old players will be able to play the game faster (browsing a match list and waiting in lobbies is not playing) with people that will challenge them (no stomping or being stomped).
Here is what you can do:
- You can choose what map preference you have as well as size (the matchmaking system will do its best to respect your preferences but will begin relax if you've been waiting a long time. The flow is actually very similar to creating a match that no one is interested in, you end up waiting for a long time and end up giving up.)
- You can use Crew Formation to play with the people you want to and enter matchmaking together either as a single crew or a team and still have preferences too
- And if you still can't find what you're looking for or want to do a tournament... create a Custom Match (just like how you crate matches now) and invite your clan mates, friends, achievement farmers, etc... Custom Match will be there for you. Custom Match will completely bypass matchmaking so make sure to invite people and get full crews formed.
Things that aren't in yet
There are a few of these:
- Reducing time for match readiness. Currently, matchmaking will just dump you into a match lobby. In the future, we're going to streamline this so you can talk to discuss loadouts but are encouraged to focus a lot more. This system will also prevent players from last second changing their loadout/having people stop being ready.
- Displacing socializing. We're looking to displace social features in the pre-match lobby (when you do loadout) into a special post-match lobby. Even add some features too. In the post-match lobby you will be able to text and voice chat with the players, make friends by requesting to enter Crew Formation with your single crew or team and then enter matchmaking again, ask for a rematch, check out your achievements and stats (more fleshed out match-end screen), and just hang out to shoot the shit.
- Featured Matches/Events. Because of the lack of Match List, you won't be able to see things like Dev Matches or Tournaments going on. Don't worry, we will have a limited list of scheduled events that players can look at, be reminded of (through notification if they choose to be reminded), and ability to join. Because it is a very small match list, the performance overhead is significantly decreased. We will put things like dev matches as well as upcoming touraments and so worth with information on how to sign up (a part of the bigger new Community features that will also help displace a lot of other social features).
Again, not all of this stuff is in. We are aiming to just efficacy of matchmaking only. When we schedule tests, does it put you into a match relatively quickly is the main question.
As with all testing, we'd like you to try these new features before you speculate. Yes, this is a big change on how things happened before but we can't be afraid of mixing it up to take bigger steps forward. Many of you are skeptical, and we can't blame you. However, please give us the benefit of the doubt and help us test these features to the best of your abilities. We are always listening to feedback and believe that these features can make the game better overall.
More details on what feedback we're looking for when we begin testing matchmaking effectiveness will be posted later but to summarize is that we're looking for if it works and user flow issues.
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Basicaly, goio will no longer be Loio (Lobbies of Icarus Online) And i fully support this idea.
But we really need confirmation about a bunch of people joining the same specific game. That is a must for us clan and team folk who want to fight eachother.
It is pretty much that which worries us. If there is an obvious or easy, or a very solid way of joining a specific game without too much Friending of a friend and friend that guy and all other guys, then its ok.
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Yes, that is Custom Match. You will be able to invite your friends into it or have friends join on you (we will also offer password support if we really need to, the user flow for the specifics of join on friend is still being ironed out ). And yes, Custom Match bypasses matchmaking completely.
This is how tournaments will probably work.
For dev matches, we will create a Custom Match and then link it to the Featured Matches so people can join it publicly by just clicking. Again, the particular flow details are being worked on still.
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Dear Muse i feel like you are going down a bad path of doing way too much uneed work and wasted time when you have real problems
paritan rumble looks like shit and has been broken for 3 or 4 months
frist you had Velcro
then it was the wrong map
wel now it have Velcro and flying buildings and invisible cranes or some shit along with floating trees WTF?
you still need to put root in and support the current player base with in game community features
support clans you might as well we are 60 to 70% of the retestus player base
all the coding problems and dc, di-sinking and the steam issue
im some time wounder if you guy even have a plan
start with pro's and con's before leaping in to matchmaking it doesn't fit in this game
other problem i see related to matchmaking that you haven't mentions is how will new player learn if they can't talk to the person that just beat them
so one day that player might beat all the other noobs and get to play in one of the big boys lobby's and they will get stomped
and i have to be honest im not a fav of stacking or stomping you can offern hear me tell people why there ship not going to work
i can also see a lot of other problems with ship load out and just being chucked in to a game i can't see my favorite part of this game staying or surviving which is strategy
im not going to threaten you "many of you have threatened to leave if we do it" but i would never buy or play a game that has match making and would view games in a bad way and any game that has them i come to this game with 16 friends from real life only 2 of them still playing
i have a clan of 15 and about 20 casual friends no one i have spoken to likes any of these idea and we really don't think matchmaking fits this game
tropo is pissed off and i don't speak for all of sacrilege im sure they will coment on there own time
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It's hard to put in words all the reasons I love lobby/server systems in games. I feel the same about my hate for matchmaking.
I do worry how much work is being put in to this. If the community dislikes the final product, that production time is a bit of a waste (which is ok since your trying to go for something to improve the game), but will that just go past dev app no matter what our opinions are? I've seen many other companies change/add things players don't want and ruin the game for many people even though the testers have stated the update shouldn't happen.
I worry a lot. But, that's good. Cuz I love the game :3
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Please make sure that you thoroughly read my original post before you raise your concerns. A lot of the issues that you may have are considered in the post. E.g. how will new players learn after they are beat... there will be a post-match lobby for people to speak.
We spend a lot of time considering these features. To also blame us for things that we cannot control (like Steam related issues) is completely unfair. We work hard, squashing over 50 bugs in the last 2 months, to make this game good.
As I said in the original post, we are indeed working on community features which includes better clan and event support, but this is not the place to talk about it. We're talking about strictly the goals and ramifications of matchmaking and the steps and new features to maintain what we lose from removing match list.
We want matchmaking to work. We'll do what we can to make it work and have it satisfactory for everyone. At the end of it, we believe that there is a good way to do matchmaking that will satisfy even the harshest opponents.
Again, my biggest rule is TEST before you speculate. All this is here to try to clear the air and be transparent with our intentions. Testing will be happening soon and I hope everyone can participate.
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Let me also just chime in real quick and focus the topic a little bit. We listen to everyone and everything, you guys know that. But the goal here is to get people to try and give us meaningful, reasonable feedback. Conjectures are going to be harder for us to process, consider, or act on. And let me add to what Eric's saying. We, like all games, have bugs, and we are actively working on them and improving them. But the fact (and I really mean fact) is that, two of our biggest issues are imbalance and wait time. The current match list (not lobby, but match list) system pushes against the issues and have not held up well. We can debate about the merits of the match list as well (and what people like vs don't like), but this cannot be just a blanket opinion. Once again, we are bringing everyone in to test weeks and months before release, and let's test and let experience and evidence formulate feedback and opinions. That's where feedback is most helpful.
Thanks a lot! Howard
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Also, on a maybe more lighthearted side. I was looking at the feedback I got for scramble, and some of them weren't pretty. But do note this, that the changes we made the last 2 patches have improved retention statistically. What suffered vocal negative feedback before implementation and testing did end up achieving its intended purpose. So just maybe, we do know what we are doing :D
Regardless, take it easy everyone, and have a great weekend!
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To all the people complaining: please, clearly list specific use-cases that you fear will not be possible with the new system.
I'll start by listing some I've heard-
I'm worried that I will not be able to see the opponents before I start playing. For example if I'm an engineer I want to know whether or not to take an extra firefighting tool or a buff hammer, depending on whether they have flamethrowers or not.
I'm also worried that it will be harder to host impromptu themed matches, say a match with all squids, or a match for clan recruitment. I know they will still be possible, in fact they will be more visible via the featured match list, but they will take more effort to organise, and organising is not very fun, ask any clan leader.
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Let me also just chime in real quick and focus the topic a little bit. We listen to everyone and everything, you guys know that. But the goal here is to get people to try and give us meaningful, reasonable feedback. Conjectures are going to be harder for us to process, consider, or act on. And let me add to what Eric's saying. We, like all games, have bugs, and we are actively working on them and improving them. But the fact (and I really mean fact) is that, two of our biggest issues are imbalance and wait time. The current match list (not lobby, but match list) system pushes against the issues and have not held up well. We can debate about the merits of the match list as well (and what people like vs don't like), but this cannot be just a blanket opinion. Once again, we are bringing everyone in to test weeks and months before release, and let's test and let experience and evidence formulate feedback and opinions. That's where feedback is most helpful.
Thanks a lot! Howard
While reasoned feedback is nice... the devapp is not the testing ground you need, simply because nobody plays it, they test it. Which means you are testing "testing", not testing "playing". This is the fundamental flaw, in my opinion, of dev app testing and why it has not been particularly useful to you beyond detecting glaring errors. You will find out if the matchmaking works but nobody will actually know whether it ruins their game experience because in the dev app, you don't have a "game" experience you have a "test" experience. You are only ever going to get a real test of the consequences of matchmaking when you implement it in the game itself and that is why I strongly encourage that you do not remove the matchlist at the same time as implementing matchmaking. A delayed end goal of a removed matchlist is a more sensible proposition - once you've proven that the conjecture is mistaken and everything works perfectly as predicted. But if matchmaking is not good, or people are simply alienated by the sudden and forceful replacement of the old, comfortable system then I think it's safe to say the damage to your core playerbase will be unprecedented and irreparable.
Your matchmaking is one thing: you want it, you are going to implement it and that's probably OK. But your intention to immediately destroy the prior system is both alienating to your longtime players and just immensely silly - it is making the enormous gamble that the matchmaking will be perfect.
the following is perhaps to some extent the conjecture that you don't want. I have given my reasons why in this case I think dev app testing is far less useful than conjecture and I think they are good ones.
Hopefully at least some of this is specific enough? and not too long. ^^
The idea that there should not be a long pre-match lobby I think indicates a significant lack of understanding by Muse of the game you have created. Firstly, you apparently don't appreciate the strategic depth or where that strategy takes place. This game is one where matches are often decided before they start - through co-ordination, correct equipment choices, tailoring your ship to your crew, your loadout to your ship and your ship to your allies and enemies. Choosing by class and even skill level is NEVER going to be enough to assemble proper crews.
You intend to offer players no choice in the crew they are a part of. You have built a game of endless possibilities and are now saying "No possibilities for you! We're just going to shove you onto a ship you didn't choose, do everything we can to discourage taking time to think about and prepare for the huge breadth of tactical gameplay and prematch options and force you to work within this prevalent but by no means completely dominant crew composition." What if you don't want to run double engineer? What if you wanted to try crewing on a specific ship? What if you realise its in your team's best interests to swap class with another crewmember? I find it ridiculous that we are expected to press gang three friends every time we want to try something slightly different or have any real prematch preparation.
Then there's retention. Who teaches new players? Other new players? Of course not. Sure, they play some novice matches until level 3 and it's probably good for them - but I believe most of the people who actually get into the game and make the rare transition from new to experienced do it through association with experienced players. You know, in those matches that incorporate a mix of skill levels and I'm assuming would never happen in your new system. (most new players seem to give up pretty early - if they don't make it out of novice matches no way will they grind through the skill algorithms until they find interesting people to play with) You want to improve player retention? Then don't separate new players from the only people who can teach them to play and integrate them into the community.
I guess it may be that I'm mistaken and you intend to mix skilled and inexperienced players. Unfortunately, not all experienced players are interested in teaching and certainly none of them will want to do it in every single match they play. The beautiful thing about a match list and pre-match lobby is choice. New players who want to learn will find their way to experienced players who want to teach and in this manner are incorporated into your dedicated fanbase.
You don't like teamstacking? A pity - because now the only way for large clans, such as the Gents, to play casually will be to stack. Why? When we enter a normal, public lobby in force, we can and do spread ourselves across both teams (admittedly this hasn't happened as efficiently as it should on a couple of occasions, sorry about that). As I understand it, the only way for us to play public matches together with the matchmaking system is through crew formation. And a full clan team is going to pubstomp pretty much any matchmade team you throw at it however good your algorithms: I would put the odds of winning on a prepared, organised clan team even if your matchmaking system could wake up and slam the 8 best players into some semblance of an opposition. As I understand it, you're not offering any real option for clans to avoid stacking teams. Although, you will at least be herding experienced players against them - the new players will be protected from the influence of clans.
Yes, the new players will be safely protected and isolated from clans. You know, those same clans that lay claim to the vast majority of your dedicated playerbase, whose members play your events, advertise your game, buy dozens of copies for their friends and keep playing together where alone and without a clan to bring them together would have abandoned Guns of Icarus and stopped fighting for its success ages ago. New players won't see head nor tail of them. Matchmaking success at its finest!
I think the fundamental issue is that matchmaking suits competitive games which tend to be more individualistic and/or focus on smaller teams. Guns of Icarus is, I think uniquely, not individualistic or even overly team or crew focused - it is a community game. The communities that are lobbies, or teams, or crews and the interaction between those communities as well as the broader community of the game's entire playerbase - these are the basis for what makes Gun of Icarus a pleasant game and while I'm hesitant to completely dismiss the depth of the gameplay I'd say the social interaction is a large part of what makes it fun and interesting too. The match list and lobbies facilitate this perfectly and I'm scared that matchmaking will to an extent do the opposite. Yes, in the end matchmaking probably has to happen to seize the attention of newer players and facilitate better and more competitive pub matches. But the pre-match lobby is something wonderful and killing it would be killing a huge part of the game for me - and as it appears I wouldn't be the only one. I think a duality between the social, casual Lobby based player and the competitive efficiency of Matchmaking would be a far better end goal than leaving the poor lobbies of Icarus dead at the wayside.
I'm also worried that it will be harder to host impromptu themed matches, say a match with all squids, or a match for clan recruitment. I know they will still be possible, in fact they will be more visible via the featured match list, but they will take more effort to organise, and organising is not very fun, ask any clan leader.
I can't believe posting custom games on the featured match list is available to everyone? Therefore the impromptu themed matches does remain an issue. The fact that I could shout "all harpoon mobula wrestle" in a lobby with some Gents and adventurous CsMs and it just happened is an example of the hilarious and awesome possibilities that Muse propose to sacrifice for the sake of matchmaking. Is it worth it? Or even necessary - as I understand it, matchmaking and matchlist could live together comfortably. Certainly pretty much every other game with matchmaking does it.
Also, on a maybe more lighthearted side. I was looking at the feedback I got for scramble, and some of them weren't pretty. But do note this, that the changes we made the last 2 patches have improved retention statistically. What suffered vocal negative feedback before implementation and testing did end up achieving its intended purpose. So just maybe, we do know what we are doing :D
Regardless, take it easy everyone, and have a great weekend!
sales, player influxes, new clans, key Youtubers have spoken very highly of the game recently. Scramble is not the only factor influencing player retention and quite possibly not the most important and I think you are probably aware of that. But either way, with scramble you made the sensible decision to leave people the possibility of opting out, and many people do. That was adding a feature whereas we're looking at a definite replacement here. If you just wanted to add matchmaking without removing the matchlist the situation would be quite different.
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i guess what im saying is i can't see any point on testing this as it really needs way more time then the current community is will to give you due to problems in the passed with wasted time (reporting problems that went live no matter what)
i think it will take 3 to 4 months to fix after it goes live and i won't wait thought that and the rough rag tag community that will be left won't be very nice people im going off other games and passed expertise i have had with games that have made the change
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@tropo, if you do not want to be a part of testing, that's totally fine. We'll be organizing test sessions that will hopefully yield the data that we need to make determinations. I'm not sure if what you're referring to with wasted time in testing, and reported bugs are logged and we do try to fix them during dev app testing or if fixes do not work well, afterwards in hot fixes. Sure if you don't feel like we have done a good job taking feedback or improving the game, it's your right to not be a part of the game. Ultimately, you're the customer, and you have the freedom to choose and decide. Like I said again, we are testing a match making system, and it is your choice to participate or not. And it is your choice to evaluate what we're doing and decide whether you enjoy the game or not. If you choose not to participate in testing, that's totally fine, and you can continue to enjoy the game as is.
Thanks!
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Think this will be a must have for the PS4. So I'm not opposed completely to it being added. But I'm very wary of this as I see this as a way devs control and limit gamers. Also with this needs to come a complete nuke and redo of the leveling system as many late level achievements require patience and sitting in empty lobbies till people join. Unless this will help force people into things like 4v4, but some nights the player base is so small that it makes things impossible.
I'd like to believe this will be a good change but I've got years of XBL exp that tells me I'm going to be spending more time yelling at players with no attention spans and mouths connected to their asses.
Guess as long as we can still make lobbies instead of feeding the bottom feeder grinder, then social panel will be more important.
But one big issue that I can think of now is, how are we going to get people to fix their class if they midjoin as a gunner? You needed the match list to resolve that. So without it do we just threaten them with the wrath of doom unless they leave and give us an AI engineer back?
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Thank you Omniraptor for reminding everyone to clearly state their problems. For everyone, please follow Omniraptor's post for reference and use it as a guide when voicing your concern.
RE: Teaching
Teaching matches will be sponsored Match List. We are also working on new tutorials because ours aren't up to snuff right now, we know that. There will be a degree of player mixing as well. It won't be like a lvl 1 with a lvl 10 but you can expect some degree of relaxation to the stringency of matchmaking depending a variety of different variables like wait time.
RE: Featured Match List
Like how some matches are feature now in the Match List (matches popping up to the top), only those the proper admin access can Feature a match.
RE: Impromptu matches
We hadn't thought of this before. Yes, this means impromptu Squid races will be harder to make. You must organize them via Custom Match and invite people. However, now that we know that this is something people will be interested in... we can plan for it. I'll give it some thought, but ultimately a thing like Squid races may be a scheduled event.
RE: Dev App population
We haven't sent out invites or testing times for this yet. We've put in a lot of effort to get everyone aware that this is happening far in advance, sent out additional keys, etc.... As Bubbles said, this is the biggest thing we're testing and we're doing our best to coordinate an effort to get the testing done and gather valuable feedback. Other than Dev App, we don't have any other place to safely test things other than putting into the actual game. Especially with matchmaking, we need a ton of players and this is why we're trying to coordinate as much as possible. So telling your friends and urging everyone to participate is going to be key. If coordination doesn't work out, we'll definitely look at alternatives.
RE: Choice
You can try whatever loadouts or ship combinations you want with your three friends by using Crew Formation and then jump into matchmaking. You can even join matchmaking with a partially formed crew like just 2 engineers. If you join matchmaking on your own, the system will try to make crews with 1 Captain/Pilot, 1 Gunner, 2 Engineers. This is the most accepted loadout so the system will try to enforce it as best it can.
RE: pre-match lobby
Don't fret. You will be able to see your enemy's loadouts. However, it will be organized and ordered. We're looking into real life sports like basketball's tip offs and American football's coin tosses for inspiration. Teams will get opportunities to examine the opposing team's loadout and respond to it accordingly. Depending on the coin toss, one team will get the final customization before the match will start. It'll be much more like chess and even increase the amount of strategic play in pre-match lobbies instead of the mad dash to be the last one to get the surprise customization. Again, we will test this thoroughly when we have something to work with. This is also very rough design wise so we're open to suggestions on it. We'll think about changing class during this time too.
RE: stomping in matchmaking
While the assumption that the best Crew Formed teams may always win may be accurate, the way in which ELO and Glicko systems work is that the results of the match are stacked. First, though, is that the system will try to match any experienced Crew Formation with an opponent of similar rating. It's possible that there is just 8 max level players and everyone else lvl 1 so this Perfect Formed Crew will always stomp... however the ratings are again stacked in a way that if the Perfect Formed Crew loses to the lvl 1's, the lvl 1's will take a ton of points from the Perfect Formed Crew. Therefore, the ratings system will equalize over time. Like how you assume the Gents will always stomp, we also have to assume the other extreme in that there will be a time when the Gents do not perform and lose to the underdog. The underdog is handsomely rewarded. These types of are designed exactly to address this kind of issue.
RE: player distribution across matchmaking
This is why we're testing matchmaking. We can adjust the leniency as much as needed to ensure that new players are exposed to more experienced players 'often' enough. My thought is that so long as the average team rating matches the opposite team's average rating then it's likely a fun match. This means a team can have max level and lowest level, so long as those team average are the same between the two teams. This can be tuned however we see fit. Basically, point taken and we have a solution.
RE: matchmaking timeline
We are going to test thoroughly before releasing it. It's a huge deal and we know it. This why we've been talking about it to you for the past two months. We'll be spending another large chunk of time fine tuning everything and making sure there are no hiccups and that we address as many of these issues as possible.
RE: midjoin
This is something that may not exist anymore due to the way ratings need to be calculated. If we need it back, we'll bring it back. There are other questions like "what happens if someone leaves mid match?" that we're still mulling over. The question may be, which is worse: midjoin into pre match lobby or midjoin into a match that already started? In either case, we would strictly enforce the 1 captain/pilot, 2 engineer, 1 gunner formula for crews.
RE: levels
If it will break achievement leveling, then we'll have to look at it and redesign it. I don't think it will be a huge problem. Sitting in empty lobbies is similar to finding people to invite into your custom match to farm achievements. If we need to redo the leveling system in skirmish (old players will be safely grandfathered, don't worry) then we can look at alternatives. In fact, I'm designing a more traditional progression system for Co-Op so in a sense work is being done on this already. Again, we'll have to wait and see. One step at a time.
In general, our goal is not to control or shoehorn you into one thing or another. We want to make getting into matches faster, more reliable, and enable people to have more fun more quickly. That's the bottom line. Any choice, strategy, socialization, or anything else that you may feel like is being taken away we're trying to make sure that in some part of the user flow that you still have it. We'll of course lose some things like impromptu squid races but now we know about those things, we can plan and see if we can fit it back in.
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Alright I'm game to see how this turns out. Thank you for helping address our worries. I can't speak for everyone but I worry more only about things I love. Apologize if Ive been borderline confrontational or worse. I do care a lot when it is something I've invested so much time into.
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So, if I'm reading this correctly, even with Matchmaking you'll be put into a lobby first so that you can adjust player loadouts to whatever the captain wants?
Other than that I do think that it'd be nice if the captain/pilot can determine what they want their crew makeup to be when they join through matchmaking, whether that's 2engie or 3engie setup.
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Designated slots by the captain along with matchmaking would work. However we'd likely see lots of high level engineers and very few gunners as people will realize they cannot get into matches as gunners. This is a common issue in mmos where dps get stuck waiting all day for groups as tanks and healers are more in demand.
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@velvet, firstly, it is a fair point about having statistically significant numbers in testing, if that is what you're referring to. And with the changes that we've implemented in the past, it is reasonable to say that we at time don't see the full ramifications until things are live. I am well aware of what is adequate and statistically significant testing. To get to there is a challenge, but the goal is of course to get there.
I think there is a bit of confusion to the point I am making. By saying that people wait excessively long before match start is not saying that we are removing strategy or giving people time to strategize. The issue here is that match lobby wait extends beyond strategy and tactic. The system nearly completely depends on the player to ready for example. It is thereby a manual system that really doesn't actively facilitate. It is dependent upon player mediation, and therefore isn't designed to optimize the efficiency of match readiness. We can debate this more in depth, but I do think that the limitation of the current system is apparent. The aim of the new system is in part to try to allow people to make strategic and tactical decisions and choices, but improve efficiency of match start. If through testing, we find that the system is not optimal, we will then need to improve upon it.
With the point about offering people no choice to form crew, this is actually incorrect. People will explicitly have the option to form crew. And the aim is to make that effective. If it isn't in testing, then we'll again need to find ways to improve it.
On teaching. You are correct. When veteran players teach new players, it is beautiful and it is something that we want to foster. The current Novice system I agree has flaws, but when people whose skill levels are disparate are paired together, the experience can be actually excruciating for everyone. This I am not conjecturing. This is based on what we have seen before Novice was even implemented. And this is based on studies in other games as well. Teaching does happen a lot, and we have a great community, but sadly it doesn't happen often enough, because it is often not aligned with the interests of the players involved who are at very different stages of the learning curve.
The point about choice is valid, but herein lies the paradox in this point. You are correct that often people do not want to teach, and it is more often than not that new players find themselves not on the ship of someone willing to teach, but on a side that a well organized team destroys repeatedly. This is of course anecdotal. But really what it comes down to is that, can we facilitate learning by experience sharing between players of different levels. This is your main concern here correct? I think we are conscious of this, and it is something we want, but at the same time do a better job of ensuring balance. Are we there yet? We shall test and find out.
Ok, with "team stacking," let me just make this point as clear as I can. We DO NOT have issues with team stacking, if that term means people who know each other want to form up and play together. It is not a derogatory term to me. The issue here is that, can we find reasonable opponents for this team to play with. In the current system, the answer is systematically no. The evidence is pretty clear here. And you are likely correct in assuming that a crew formed clan team can win against a match made experienced team, and I think that fair. I don't think that proves the merit of either system, as at worst, we can do as well as what we do now.
I think there is also a conception here that Match making is somehow anti clan, or that we are somehow anti clan. If somehow we gave off that impression, I definitely apologize. We are not anti clan. In fact, I would say that based on track record, we have been pretty far removed from that. We are not trying to do things to diminish clans. I would say that we have been really active in facilitating clans and the competitive scene. In fact, the community system that I have been promising about for the last 2-3 months is being worked on right now as we speak. As we have finally gone from concept and specifications to implementation. And we took more time with that to make sure that we took in feedback from you guys. With the new system in place, the aim is to actually have a place in game for clans to form and recruit, and for new players to sign up.
I think the point about featured match flexibility and accessibility is a valid concern, and it can potentially take away flexibility. And this is the exact kind of feedback we want. If in testing, you feel that this takes away the benefit of the current system that is vital. Then we should think of ways to remedy this. And things like this really helps, and this is the point I wanted to make.
Actually, with scramble, what I am telling you is that, statistically speaking, it definitely helped retention. This was not a matter of my opinion. It really did happen. I'm not making this up hahaha.
I think if I am correct, I don't see a lot of cases of games with match making systems also offering match list, and have them be in juxtaposition. Eric did more of the benchmark research, so he can speak better. But I definitely understand your point and concern here.
I think the more productive thought process is, if you like, you can list out briefly what you think are both the pros and cons of the current system. By doing this, the issues that we are tackling should be clearer, and we can then test systematically against the concerns of the new system to make sure we retain the pros of the current system.
For now, I would once again still encourage people to participate and try and test. Otherwise, whatever data and feedback we collect here would be biased (statistically speaking).
Lastly, I think we have proven that we are not without reason, and that a lot of the decisions we made turned out to be right. And I think the way we made good decisions was to listen to you guys and look at whatever data we can collect. We will continue to do the same.
Thanks! Howard
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@gilder thank you! I can't tell you how much what you said means to me. I really appreciate it. And I just want to say again that we really really respect you guys' opinions and feedback. You guys make really astute and well thought out arguments, and are the driving force for us to continue to improve. We are absolutely not saying that what we have in dev app is perfect. We are actually anticipating to make adjustments and redesigns etc. And that is why we are trying our hardest to test this out. If we didn't value your feedback, we would have just gone ahead and implemented. But we are not. We know how much testing would be a challenge, but we gotta try. Hope I'm at least sounding reasonable and rational on a Friday night :D
@tropo, please don't take what I said the wrong way. I absolutely value your opinion, but I am just making a point that it is your free will and choice, and I can't force you to do anything or coerce you into thinking something that you don't agree with. I would love for you to test, but you really don't have to. And if you think we F up, you deserve to and have the right to not support us. That's the point I was trying to make. Hope I didn't upset or offend you. Thanks a lot.
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@Imagine, unless I'm being a total idiot, which I can be at times, you are correct.
You and Gilder's points are spot on. If the new system doesn't do that effectively, we'll need to find a way to improve.
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@everyone, I know that there is angst, and that you guys are only speaking up because you care and love the game. I cannot tell you how much it means to us. With every patch, we are taking a risk, because change is never easy. But I think we as devs need to have the courage to want to change and strive to do better, and ultimately, you should demand us to change and improve. We took all the risks and devoted close to 4 years of our lives to make this game, and you guys took a risk to invest time in this game that is not like other games. The last thing we want is to disrespect anyone and screw things up. We made plenty of mistakes, but we could never let that stop us from keep trying. We built this community together with you guys through hurricane, exhaustion, and countless hours of communication, (and for me personally a lot of weird diseases and a concussion). I think you should be safe to assume that we have the best interest of you guys at heart. Thanks!
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Designated slots by the captain along with matchmaking would work. However we'd likely see lots of high level engineers and very few gunners as people will realize they cannot get into matches as gunners. This is a common issue in mmos where dps get stuck waiting all day for groups as tanks and healers are more in demand.
I don't think that'd be the case honestly. I'd still say more captains take 2/1 over 3/0, but if we're locking spots into 2/1 then it takes away a lot of the customization that captains like on their ship. Gunners wouldn't have it harder than they do now, I feel.
Anyways, as for the our angst, just know that we rage and complain and brood and celebrate because we care.
Like, a lot. Sometimes, perhaps, too much ;)
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@bubbles all good
keep the match list and look at community and social there important parts of online gaming
also showing new player what to do or how to do it
i feel a lot of players are leaving this game because high level people shout at them and complain that there doing this or that with out any reason or explanation as to how to do it properly
most classic one is yelling at some one to take some load out and never explaining why they should use x rounds in x gun
i could see match making make this worst
and i feel you could improve the details around the ammo guns and types ways to kill enemy ships before letting all this lose
have you eva seen the movie Idiocracy this is whats going thought my head when i think of match making
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Ya I'm with ya on that Gilder. I voiced my concerns and I guess I'll let this play out, and see what happens. But this may not end well.
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The issue here is that, can we find reasonable opponents for this team to play with. In the current system, the answer is systematically no. The evidence is pretty clear here. And you are likely correct in assuming that a crew formed clan team can win against a match made experienced team, and I think that fair. I don't think that proves the merit of either system, as at worst, we can do as well as what we do now.
I have to firmly disagree with you there Howard. I am fairly confident saying that most of the high level, top tier players and clans know each other. We are a small enough community that this is easily possible. If we are on at the same time, we find each other. If I make a "Tea Time", it will be filled with Cakes, SIR's, and Sacs in no time. In many ways we have created our own matchmaking system. I don't ever see you on when this happens (which is perfectly okay), but I find it funny that you are so sure we need this, when we really don't. I can understand the new players might need this, but the really the only threat to them is the mid tier players; the level 5-10's, really first breaking out of the newbie phase, trying to prove themselves to the big fish.
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@tropo, thanks a lot.
About the issue of higher level and lower level player interaction. I look at this as at leafs in part a system issue. In a intense and highly team oriented environment, conflicts between people can and do arise, and because this game mirrors how teams actually interact pretty well, people can play and end in conflict. But I think that the system in place has a lot to do with this as well. Let me digress and look at NYC subway for example. People at rush hour in the subway are generally really curt and rude and mean. You can argue that New Yorkers are just like that. But if you analyze this enough, you'll realize that most of this is system driven. In the absence of a train schedule, when trains arrive and leave stations almost on whims, and when you don't know when the next train is coming, and you don't have any markings as to where to line up, where the car door is doing to open, what you get is a free for all. You have no choice but to push your way into the train, otherwise, you miss work, and you get fired (ok, maybe not that extreme, but you get the point).
What does that have to do with us. Well, as much as it pains me to say, the current match list system not only doesn't do anything to facilitate better player interaction, it is in a number of ways conducive to less than ideal player interaction. Don't get me wrong, players a lot of times do have great interactions in the match lobby for example, but I would almost argue that they achieve this in spite of the system, and I don't think that's optimal.
On better gun to component indication, working on it. This is something Nathan is working on this week.
I haven't see the movie, but I just looked up what it's about. LOL. I really don't know. I actually think that a match making system would allow players at similar level to make and execute better tactical decisions and to be more challenged and put to the test.
I think one of the concerns for you guys would be how easy and expedient it is to form crew, because in reality, that is what you do when in a match in match list in current system, but just through coordination on your part. And I think that is something we should test and take feedback on as well.
Thanks!
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@Byron, actually I think you missed my point, and actually agreed with my point :D My point is precisely that it is not system facilitated or driven. The mere fact that you have to coordinate amongst yourself and the system doesn't do anything to facilitate finding of people with similar experience to play with means that the system is not optimal. When you say "we," you mean clans that are familiar with one another, but we (devs) have to design a system for all players. On another note, if currently you can find each other and want to play with each other, you can do that in the new system as well. If after testing, you feel like we can better facilitate your use case, we can definitely work on it to improve it.
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I'm on the same side as many who have posted already; I have no interest or desire to ever use matchmaking. My recommendation to those with concerns is to friend everyone you enjoy playing with, and bypass matchmaking completely via the friends list. That is my plan, and I worry for those who haven't been playing long enough to build up a list.
When I'm looking for a lobby, I am evaluating them. Here is a list of things that I take into consideration:
Loadouts of the players
Ship builds
Levels/matches played of players
How many friends are in the lobby
If there is anyone blocked in the lobby
If I want to play on this map
Whether players are communicating in the lobby or not
Having a particular achievement I want to work on
How long I'm willing to wait
Each of these factors contributes to whether or not I determine the lobby I want to play in. On some days, certain factors will be more important than others. Sometimes I'm fine taking captain spot on an inexperienced crew and playing professor. Sometimes I just want to hop on a strong ship and be a good engineer. These are not determinations your algorithm will be able to account for.
Forcing matchmaking onto us instead of presenting it as the default option takes away this agency from the players. Removing the ability for me as a player to evaluate which lobby I will enjoy the most will create a less enjoyable gameplay experience. If your sole motivation is to increase your "retention" and in that endeavor you're willing to sacrifice the ability of the players to make their own decisions, well that is pretty disappointing. That you bring up scrambled lobbies as a "success" only makes me care less about your analytics.
Ultimately I can only voice my opinion, and as I have a fairly large stake in the Guns of Icarus community, I'm forced to wait and see. I really do hope you make the correct decision, whatever it may be.
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@Byron, let me add something real quick. If we are only offering match making, I would say you are correct. But this is not the case. When you create a match now, you are in a sense creating a custom match, and in your case, you actually want this match to be filled with people who are competitive enough to play with you. This case we support in the new system. Granted, you won't be able to create a whackier match names for all to see, but you can still let people you know to join you. That medium of communication is not severed. If you find the new system to not work as well as you like in this regard, we'll try to figure out the pain points and improve.
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@Urz, first of all, with scramble. You can not care about statistics in general or my ability to analyze, and you are entitled to your opinion. But unfortunately, I do have to rely on statistics and scientific method to make judgments. If somehow that disappoints you, I'm not sure what to make of it.
Now, about potentially evaluating things before you join a lobby. You are assuming that this evaluation is done statically, and that the lobby dynamic doesn't change. Well, if that works for you, sure. I'm not sure where I said that I'm sacrificing the ability for players to make their own decisions, but you would like to make unsubstantiated claims without bothering to try the new system, you are welcome to. Like you said, it is your opinion. I do find the use case you raise interesting, and I'll consider that.
If there is a method in the new system that works for you, sure, by all means do so.
I am also taking risk backing you in the competitive structure, and I hope that I am making the correct decision as well.
Have a good night.
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@Urz, first of all, with scramble. You can not care about statistics in general or my ability to analyze, and you are entitled to your opinion. But unfortunately, I do have to rely on statistics and scientific method to make judgments. If somehow that disappoints you, I'm not sure what to make of it.
I'm not doubting your ability to analyze statistics. The addition of scramble lobbies has affected my own gameplay experience negatively, and you just touted the feature as an example of "I was right you were wrong because of numbers". I'm sure there are a lot of things you could do to increase new player retention that would negatively affect your regular players (such as removing the match list).
I'm not sure where I said that I'm sacrificing the ability for players to make their own decisions, but you would like to make unsubstantiated claims without bothering to try the new system, you are welcome to.
Removing the match list is limiting the player's choice in which lobby they wish to play in.
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Hey Urz,
You're right that removal of the match list is in fact a removal, but our goal is to build and test a system that puts players into the best lobbies as quickly as possible.
That's why we're so gun-ho about testing this.
This isn't to say players like you don't have an exact formula that will bring you into the match you want, but most of the time this is not the case. Most of the time players are not finding good matches and they're taking a lot of time to find these matches.
This will be a different style of match creation and yes it will be different. Many elements we've included since inception have been different though and we have lost players for our choices from Ui to balance there will always be people who say the old is better than the new. Overall though I like to believe that the game experience we've created has improved with the time we've put in.
It comes down to trying to do the best thing for all of our players, old and new. The current lobby system has many MANY flaws. We've been asked by multiple people on multiple occasions to make a second game inside the lobby because the wait times are so bad. We've had requests for liar's dice, checkers, and a couple others.
Gathering 16 players should not have that difficulty and it means we have done something wrong.
As far as scramble goes, it did help our retention and we received no negative emails after its implementation (Other than the fact buried non-scrambled matches, which was our mistake, but we fixed that.) so that's why Howard (and I) consider it a success.
There is no doubt that this is a controversial and literately game changing choice we're looking at, but while you feel your game is at stake. This is our life. This hasn't been a hasty nor light decision. Let's be honest if we bunk this up you guys lose a game and our team goes to ramen.
We will do everything we can to make the game great and if you have a way that solves the issues that players have experienced or solutions to the problems you see in matchmaking we'd love to hear it. Making this game better is everyone's goal here.
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That is not what I am saying Urz. If that's how you took it, fine, I apologize. What I was trying to say was that if we are just looking at numbers overall, we can see an improvement of retention. And because we implemented the feature specifically to be measured against attrition and player levels, I would consider the feature implementation a success, because it achieved what we set out to do. It's true that we didn't exclusively release scramble to isolate just the effects of scramble, so I am making a bit of an assumption here still. But I think that assumption is pretty safe.
Ok, if you mean by removing match list, your ability to see a match list and pick matches to join is limited, that's fair. And f as a result, you don't use match making, I think that's perfectly ok. I don't think for a second that match making is perfect. If you have a valid use case, then the question becomes can we support your use case. And how easy we accommodate your use case. I think that we can try and find out. If ended up we don't support how you play the game at all, then I think that's definitely cause for concern.
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You guys pretty much covered what I was concerned about, as I figured you would. It's hard to be okay with something till you have specifics. I'm looking forward to it now. It really should up player retention without sacrificing a lot of the excellent social side of Icarus.
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It's good to have concerns, and it just means that we need to test, consider, and address them.
We definitely have in mind the social aspect of the current system as well, and want to make sure we preserve that. That is one strength in the current system that we recognize for sure.
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Let me just make another point. Before scramble was implemented, I had a debate with Qwerty, and he astutely asked me about match list performance. For everyone who's gone through the TGS event days when we had to manually force start matches know that match list is a performance bottleneck. We have since then done a ton of work to drastically optimize the match list performance, but as of today, it is the single biggest performance bottleneck, and it is the one system that's least scalable and most ready to fail at higher concurrents. If we want to grow bigger as a community, the match list is the least sustainable of a system performance wise. While I was right in that the match list can handle increased concurrents, I am also wrong at the time because it is not future proof performance wise. And that factored into our decisions as well.
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Ultimately I think matchmaking is a good idea, for a number of reasons. The big disadvantage is that we do lose some choice in the matter. However, part of the matchmaking goal is to put you into fair matches, something most players try to look for anyways. You might lose the ability to randomly create some 'for fun' matches like all mine battles and flamethrower wars, but there's a custom match for that.
The biggest issues I come across in the match list system are long wait times to start a match, and imbalanced matches. The scramble option helps relieve some of the imbalance, because it keeps shifting around.
Wait times prior to a match is caused by a number of factors. First you need all captains slots full, then you need all captains to ready. Captains only ready when they're ready, and they often wait for everyone to be ready because we're full of happy go lucky friendly people that don't like force starting a match.
For a single captain to be ready, they have to be prepared for the match. This can range from a player just being happy they're in a captain slot, to a captain making sure his crew and his ally ship meet his expectations of loadouts and experience. How long this takes depends on the crew's knowledge and experience.
Most captains also want to have a full crew.
Match imbalance happens for a number of reasons, and most of them aren't intentional. Players want to be on the 'winning' team, they'll flock to the higher ranks, or they'll want to play with their friends/clans. Newer players tend to leave more often, letting more experienced players stick around and start to group more.
You toss in matchmaking, and those issues start to go away. Matches get automatically filled with players around the same experience/skill. Higher ranking captains tend to have higher standards, and these are more rapidly met by higher ranking players who know to do what their captain expects. Lower ranking players don't have that many expectations, and they'll often get a crew who's happy to do whatever.
Matches will also be fair more often. The higher ranking players will be congregated together, but they'll also be put against other high ranking players. This leads to much more interesting matches. This also allows the newer players a less steep learning curve. As they get better, they'll be put against players that are better, and slowly learn the game rather than being tossed into the deep end of the pool under the system we have now.
I've also been informed that this reduces the load on the server by creating the optimal number of matches instead of having 50 matches waiting to fill up when they each have 60% of their slots full. (where 30 matches would be the optimal number).
It might also improve the appearance of different maps (such as 3v3 and 4v4 maps). In my ideal matchmaking system, you'd just put in whether you prefer a capture point match or death match, instead of choosing a specific match you want. The increased variety would appeal to a lot of players instead of doing dunes over and over because someone needs the achievement.
Obviously it's not going to work 100% of the time. There's going to be times when teams aren't balanced, or it takes a long time to find a match. That's just life. But it certainly would improve upon what we have now (in terms of wait time and balance).
You can still group with your friends, and start your custom matches by inviting players; so I don't really see too many downsides to the system. This has been thought about a lot, even up to ways to keep the socializing factor still around. Overall I think it'll be a solid system that improves player retention and general enjoyment of the game.
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Well, the worst that can happen is we don't like it, raise a fuss and then Muse responds, hopefully fixes it accordingly. Which they did for Scramble. We raised concerns, you listened and Scramble turned out to be really a good move.
I keep trying to remind myself this isn't EA, Blizzard, or Bioware. When I've tested for other game companies, you can raise more fuss that you ever could have thought possible but they'll never listen. They just put up the build, if any big bugs are found they're fixed, but as for your input on the dev, you have no input. Even if its the worst idea in the history of gaming (ESO beta, Hawken Alpha), they'll never listen. Its just talking to a wall.
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Possibly having two different areas. One for opinions. One for bugs. As not to mix them. That way we can still post our opinions without interrupting testing results (bugs and such).
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Thank you for taking the time and effort to provide such detailed responses. The effort you put into improving this game and interacting with its community is commendable.
As before, I maintain that removing matchlist damages a part of the game experience. As Byron mentioned, spontaneous accumulation of experienced players in one lobby isn't a particularly rare occurrence and is always pretty interesting when it happens. I think the chances of this happening through matchmaking are unlikely. If you have streamlined the lobby process enough, most people will spend the majority of their time in game rather than searching for matches. Considering the fairly low population on the servers at certain times of day I think even if there are skilled enough players to take on whichever formed crew is looking for an opponent, they'll probably be in-game and unavailable.
As for underdogs beating clan teams, yes it will happen. But I don't think it will happen enough to make the experience enjoyable for these underdogs unless clan teams intentionally handicap themselves by ships/compositions/loadouts, which seems far less interesting than agreeing in lobby to manually scramble.
I still have essentially the same question: Why is there a hurry to remove matchlist? Yes, it may be for the best for it go eventually, but is there a compelling reason to remove it simultaneously with the addition of matchmaking? I'd have thought the safest option would be a two stage implementation and deimplementation to ensure that if matchmaking puts a large number of people off the game you don't lose major chunks of the active playerbase. This would also feel less sudden and aggressive a change which may help to gradually transition players onto the new system.
And one more question. To what extent will crewing on a less skilled player's ship (who dies and loses frequently) negatively affect the "skill rating" of an experienced crew? I'm thinking from the perspective of flying with clan or friends again - in pub matches almost everyone gets a shot at piloting at some point and it would be a shame if matchmaking somehow discouraged this. That leads on to the broader question of whether a good player can get a high skill rating independently of a good team.
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Yes, that is Custom Match. You will be able to invite your friends into it or have friends join on you (we will also offer password support if we really need to, the user flow for the specifics of join on friend is still being ironed out ). And yes, Custom Match bypasses matchmaking completely.
This is what i was saying i feared, If the only way we can join is thru FRIENDS then it is flawed. Mostly for us competetive folk. We are going to have to friend almost each and every single person that are in competetive gameplay. Im not talking tournaments, but scrimmages. Scrimmages are essentialy 8 people, apart from the other 8 duking it out. To join, we have to join thru friends. By the end where a competive player or an orginized group plays orginized games, they will have to have everyone as friends on the friends list where it is hard to filter out your current online friends and constant friend coming online messages popping up etc etc.
That is unless you do something with the friendslist, where that is more orginized and whatnot.
Uh, i may sound against the matchmaking concept, im not. I actualy love the idea, i saw every thing good about it. I just want an addition that does not take away orginized play or making us hassle with the friend/friendslist function by too much. Allready some of us have so many friends on friendslist we cant find eachother no more :|
Addittion Edit:
Holy crap, alot of people are against matchmaking, to various degrees. Im not a good person at explaining things. But what matchmaking does is kill the game that is Lobbies of Icarus. Should be apparent since it is so high up in the thread. And makes having people, and playing the game alot quicker.
To me, that is the MAIN dish of the new system. Make you play the game. They even added in with filtering what you dont want and want. Which again, is a secondary dish where you no longer end up on Labyrinth if you just wanna play deathmatch games.
There is not many problems with the stated matchmaking features. In comparison to todays lobbies.
My only concern is 8 people who arent really friended with the other 8 people who want to duke it out. Now, imagine when there are ALOT more competetive players who want to play orginized play. Your friendslist will have to be reserved only for people who, are just contacts than actual FRIENDSLIST. Other than that, if there is an answer to that, im happy. Atleast i will become happy :3
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@Gilder, thanks a lot, really appreciate it. Yeah this is what motivates us to open this system up for testing as much as possible. I think there might be another confusion about how much testing we intend to do, or how long this is staying in dev app before we release. Let me just clarify, we are not releasing match making in a week (people have come to expect things staying in dev app for a week before release, and with match making, it is not the case), or even 2 weeks, or 3 weeks, etc. We intend to test and iterate for a while. If anyone feels like, oh my god, this thing is on dev app, Howard is going to release it next week, please do not stress. In dev app, with matching making, you may even say the UI is not even polished yet, and as you will see from the test document, that is totally by design. We wanted you guys to help test the usage flow and functionality first before we even polish the final UI. We think that it's smarter to go back to our alpha roots for a system this big, and to get you involved at the earlier stages. It's risky, because we are relying on you guys to not be biased by work in progress UI for example, but we think it'll turn out well.
The reason why this thread exists, and that the match making is in dev app testing, is precisely because we want to work with everyone. And if there are issues, or if anyone finds inadequacies in supporting the use cases of organized teams and clans, we'll definitely need to take a look and improve.
Overall, I think this is great. This thread alone helps us to understand more precisely what your concerns are. It actually really useful for us.
Have a great weekend everyone!! Howard
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@Crafeksterty, yeah I hear you. You concern is actually shared by the others who commented, and it's valid. And it's something we definitely have to take into consideration. Thanks a lot!
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@Velvet, thanks a lot. We're not being hasty actually. If I was really being hasty, I would have called for design and implementation a few months back. So rest assured that we're not trying to be hasty. I think for now, we really want to focus on testing the system first. With rollout, I don't think having incongruous systems in juxtaposition is a good idea based on experience, but I really think we can debate that at a later time. For now, I think the goal for us should be to test the system, and find the inadequacies in both supporting use cases as well as in the things that it is designed to do (ex. wait time, match balance, etc.). As far as skill rating, we should be accounting for this, but this is something we definitely want to test for effectiveness as well.
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@Puppy Fur, yeah you're right. But I think it's ok for now. We'll need to have a different way to collect, organize, and filter test results. Internally, we might use Trello this time because of the scale, and we'll need to make sure the pipeline for feedback isn't messy.
Thanks!
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Well I had a lot of concerns about ship scramble before it was implemented however by the time the community feedback was worked in we wound up with what I consider a really successful and enjoyable system.
I'm hoping this well turn out similarly.
Just a few questions.
Will the system allow me to run a 3 engineer crew when queuing up solo?
Will the system allow me to run a ship with an engineer captain?
How easy or difficult will it be to convey to my crew what load outs I think are optimal.
What happens if the match starts before I'm ready (wrong ship, build, load out, crew comp etc.).
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@Smollett! Thanks a lot. I'm really excited for you. I live pretty close by to your new work, so I can try to swing by :D
1) Yes
2) Yeah you can, the system will use a default crew composition like Eric said. But in match lobby, you can adjust.
3) It should be easy. In the pre-match lobby, you'll just chat and talk to your crew.
4) Then the match will start in match making. So the one thing we can test for is when is the max time we should allow for for match readiness.
Thanks a lot! Howard
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Suppose I have some of my own questions while you're on a roll:
1. Is there just one skill level for your account, or is it different for each of your roles? (So would my pilot skill level be different than my gunner skill level?)
2. Is the win/loss of points related to my personal skill level, or the average of my team?
3. If someone drops mid-match, will that affect their skill level in a negative way?
4. If someone on your team drops mid-match, will that adjust the skill level of the team and you'll lose less points if your team loses?
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Is there just one skill level for your account, or is it different for each of your roles? (So would my pilot skill level be different than my gunner skill level?)
this is a good point because i would be in the top end of gunning and piloting lets say top 100 players or some thing
but as a engineer i would be equal with a new player skill wise or low ability
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I think removal of the 'ready' button is a bad idea. When you're flying with experienced players or clanmates, setting up a ship takes around 10 seconds, i.e. "alice is front, bob is top deck, charlie is bottom deck. You guys know what to take". Everyone selects the appropriate tools and after a quick double-check we're good to go.
However when paired up with a new player you may want to explain (depending on level of noobishness) what different tools look like, how to hit customisation complete, how the repair/buffing mechanic works, repairing/chemming/rebuilding/shooting/targeting/buffing priorities, etc etc.
The third option is to say 'herp derp just take whatever you guys want i dont care and will probably crash into a wall anyway' which I've also seen a fair bit of.
Ideally matchmaking would accomodate all three captaining styles.
P.S regarding skill, for the love of all that is holy make sure this skill is a hidden value, because it leads to all sorts of unpleasantness when people can see it, including but not limited to refusing to play to 'preserve their rating'.
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@Omniraptor, actual values will definitely be hidden. And I would flip the argument is say that the ready button is a bad idea. There are a ton of reasons, match start time, equity in time desired to prep (leading to always the longest possible wait time until people get impatient or leave, which then leads to even longer start time), etc. But the worst of it is that it puts the burden of a system on the players, and this is bad from a community standpoint as well. And considering the time needed to prepare and strategize for different skill level is a good point. I have to confirm with Jerry and Eric on how the system currently handles this, but it's a good point.
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@tropo and thomas, let me defer the skill level calculations to Jerry and Eric because they have more in depth knowledge than I do. But I'm pretty sure you're on the right track.
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Will there be the option to join on players?
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Will there be the option to join on players?
I'm pretty sure they said earlier in the thread that there will be.
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I'm pretty sure you can join your friends, but I'd assume you'd have to do it before they enter the matchmaking. I believe there was a mention of no longer being able to join matches in progress, which is why I brought up the AI stuff too. Being able to join your friends mid-match would only be capable of happening if players leave the game in progress. Both players leaving and players joining would skew the skill rating for a team by a lot.
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with some of the above comments sounds like you might as well make it a pissing match and call it cod 6 or some other crap and start new game for all the little kiddies that don't have patience
there must be a way to merge both idea with out change the base geographic of the players
ready button
match list
join game in motion
and if we are having all this crap i want a kick button because some people don't listen would rather not play with them
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@tropo, I have already articulated the drawbacks of the current system and with the ready button. If you have a concern about potentially not having enough time to ready for example, sure that's a valid concern. If you disagree, and think that you would like us to consider any merit that the ready button has, you're welcome to articulate it. Otherwise, it's really hard for me to know how to respond to address your concerns.
Also, if you think that an attempt to design a system that will try to address issues with wait time, imbalance, performance, etc. is crap, ok, you can opt out of it. You do not have to use match making. Like Urz pointed out, you do not have to use match making at all. If there is then an ease of use concern with custom match, then we can try to figure out what that is and work on a better solution. If you do not want to participate in testing, that's also fine, you don't have to at all.
I'm really not trying to be defensive or confrontational, but I would appreciate it if you can at least consider the pros and cons, look at what we are trying to do and understand by maybe trying it out once, before you just dismiss everything we are doing as crap. I've never dismissed or disrespected anything you said, and I hope that I've always listened and considered your feedback. I'm just saying it would be helpful for me if we can at least have a civil debate and understand your issues clearly so we can note it and think it through.
Thanks a lot, Howard
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Bubbles, could you explain what you mean by 'putting the burden of a system on players'?
IMO The ideal way of accommodating different prep times is simply to handle the prep before being paired up with your opponents. That way every team has as much or as little time as they want to prepare.
The best way to implement this is probably to have a system of two tiers- team formation, and then matchmaking between different teams.
For example, once the user clicks play button, they pick a map to play on and are put into 'crew formation', where 8 people gather together and make a coherent team of ships for that map. Once both captains on the team click the ready button, the game pairs them up with another team on the map and the game begins.
The problem bubbles seems worried about is if everything works as I just described, and two captains of different skill are put into the same team formation, one ship will have to wait for the other. I think it's a worthy tradeoff because it's easier to organise 8 people than 16 people, and because it's a necessity for fun gameplay- ships need to be tailored to each other.
The other problem is that you can't tailor your team towards your opponents, but some of the best comp teams have shown there's no real need to do that anyway :P
I think this two-tier system the best compromise, because you absolutely HAVE to have ships that work well together, or else nobody will ever fly specialised ships such as squid or spire. However, you also don't want to wait for your opponents to ready up, and it solves that issue.
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so with what you just said there could be a pyra/pyra vs squid goldfish which would get stomped
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@Omni, oh I mean that, in the current system, the readiness of a match is completely reliant on the individual players. And because everyone's mindset, needs, are variable, then to start a match is completely negotiated between players. This system creates an inherit burden on the players. So the system doesn't do anything or do its job in helping the players get into a match, there is no mediation, facilitation, or anything. So that burden of mediation or facilitation is passed onto the players. If conflicts arise because of this, which it quite often does, it is actually the system's problem. The match making system is multistage, so there is prep time. Yeah the time it takes to prep is definitely something we look at.
Thanks!
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so i have just been in the dev app and this is testing and match making related not for sake of complaining i have oready shown my concern
frist thing i have notices is 4, 6 or 8 people dosen't get a match started
-how this will effect me some times in the peck time i play at and other australians there are only 40 people online with two matchs running that means the remaining people may have to wait up to 2 hours till the euro people start coming online
- idea lower the frest hold to 4 captains to start a match
second not able to join running matchs
-this effects me massively as i found out today when i dc and didn't make it back in by the rusume time aloud
-idea increase that time being that no one esle can take your spot
3rd thing was ui which needs some more work maybe ?
-make matching or what eva should be called join queue
also noticed that when i did have a match that ground sound
and all the ships where red weird bug
(http://i.imgur.com/uT3r33F.jpg)
also when i had everyone together other people judge your system and made me think of more things i see as a problem or concern
here it is your rating system never going to be perfect and if its only judge off of 4 or 5 matches it could be really bad
because any match can swing any way for any reason
-main reason you are removing the match list and stuff is because it will mess with your match making system
-idea why don't you have a match list area with unranked game like every other game with match making
muse hold me tight im scared for the future of my now favorite game of all time
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...
Problems to Solve and Goals of Matchmaking:
...
- Ease of finding a match
- Information overload (related to above)
- Time for match to Ready Up
- Teams being stacked
- Reduce performance overhead
...
Of those points above, the matchmaking system does look like information overload to me: there is a ton of buttons and switches, then you have to enter/exit queues to change it. How about three buttons: e.g. "Join Now as Engineer" "Queue Now as Gunner" and "Join Now as Pilot" for a situation where there are available pilot and engineer slots, but no Gunner slots. Or at least those three buttons for the 'I don't care just let me play' players, then an advanced screen, expand section or whatever with the information overload.
frist thing i have notices is 4, 6 or 8 people dosen't get a match started
-how this will effect me some times in the peck time i play at and other australians there are only 40 people online with two matchs running that means the remaining people may have to wait up to 2 hours till the euro people start coming online
- idea lower the frest hold to 4 captains to start a match
second not able to join running matchs
-this effects me massively as i found out today when i dc and didn't make it back in by the rusume time aloud
-idea increase that time being that no one esle can take your spot
No matches were found when we were testing (around 6 people) in matchmaking even when we were all pilot class. As Tropo stated, this could be a problem for us in the off peak hours (8pm my time is about 5am or 6am EST I think) as sometimes there is only 1-3 active matches going. A lot of times we will get a match started with only pilots and the game will fill up with crew as we play the next few matches. It's a bit of a worry if matchmaking doesn't work unless there are 16 people (of the right classess) to start a match.
Also during these off peak times there can be no novice matches going at all, so under this system there might be 8 people waiting in non novice matchmaking and some people waiting in novice matchmaking and they will never see each other and a match will never start. It seems that the matchmaking filters (e.g. novice and server location) could be a problem in off peak times and during off peak times for your preferred server location.
I hope what we experienced with 4 pilots in matchmaking and no match starting was just a bug, or at least the bug is that for some of the filters there is no "Any/I don't care" option.
Edit: so it looks like I can write walls of text too. Also, I felt the need to comment since they are obviously naming the new matchmaking system after me :D
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yeah, I'm not sure what the role of the Novice filter is now that matchmaking is being added. I don't see where it will benefit the system and ramjamslam has pointed out the definite negative effect.
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The most disconcerting issue I see is the inability to join a custom game in progress. A lot of times I hop on, and see what friends are on, if they are currently playing I will try and fill a role in that match, just to hang out and get something going afterwards, sometimes even just spectate(which is also a good way to see how other pilots fly and pickup some pro-tips). After reading the entirety of these postings I see that the idea is to get rid of Match List for performance reasons, I'm not happy about it, but I understand that this is what puts food on the table for Muse and they have crunched numbers to come out with a positive in player retention.
However, both losing Match List and the ability to join custom matches midgame in one shot is a tough pill to swallow. As Tropo stated, we had 6 people in the queue, 4 pilots and 2 engineers, in non-peak hours these people would have to start a custom match in order to play, yet there isn't a social system in place to facilitate this properly, and the match making system doesn't facilitate this either(at least not currently). I understand that this is an outlier situation when considering statistics, but it will still end up being a negative impact when people must sit in the queue for extended periods of time just to fight for the small number of slots available during non-peak hours.
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If it does in fact end up being the case that players can't join matches in progress, wouldn't it be best to remove the rejoin timer and let the player who's dropped rejoin at any point? The whole purpose (as far as I can tell) of the current rejoin timer is to allow somebody else to replace the DCed crew member after they've been gone too long. So if replacements can't happen, why not have an infinite rejoin timer?
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Because if someone ragequits, they aren't going to come back.
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Because if someone ragequits, they aren't going to come back.
But if their computer crashes and they only manage to get back after the timer runs out...
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I for one actualy welcome the adittion of ranked play. We speend way too often having to practice for competitive event's against pugs. It's not fun for them and it's no good for us, becouse we learn nothing, and we all feel guilty for effectively pug stomping.
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I may have missed it in the thread somewhere, but is there any reason why people won't be allowed to use their friends list to join a match in progress?
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thanks javrak you bring up another point
which is if a custom lobby is made if should fill it in down peek or low currency from the waiting player pool
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Okay, I had a sit and I thought about a lot of this. I'm really willing to ignore my trepidations, and see the good in this, largely due to Howard's convictions. However, going back, this quote really bothered me.
RE: pre-match lobby
Don't fret. You will be able to see your enemy's loadouts. However, it will be organized and ordered. We're looking into real life sports like basketball's tip offs and American football's coin tosses for inspiration. Teams will get opportunities to examine the opposing team's loadout and respond to it accordingly. Depending on the coin toss, one team will get the final customization before the match will start. It'll be much more like chess and even increase the amount of strategic play in pre-match lobbies instead of the mad dash to be the last one to get the surprise customization. Again, we will test this thoroughly when we have something to work with. This is also very rough design wise so we're open to suggestions on it. We'll think about changing class during this time too.
This seems really unnecessary, and quite possibly frustrating. If there is an issue of countering builds (which I don't think there is, at any skill level) simply turn off the ability to look at opposing team's ships and loadouts. But why this? What purpose or issue does it solve without creating more issues? "Surprise customization"? When has this ever been an issue? Certainly not at the competitive level, and I've never heard of medium to low level players exploiting that at all.
At the casual level, In the time waiting to start a game, my build and crew loadouts can change quite a few times. At the casual level, if I am playing with people I have never met, and that are coming and going from matches, I'd have to wait right before the game begins to give them loadouts. I also have to find out what they already know and are comfortable with. This seems very punishing for no particular reason.
It's these kind of ideas that frustrate me, because there are so many areas and opportunities for expansion in the game, and time and resources are wasted on stuff like this. I mean, who comes up with this? The battle goes on in game, I really don't want to have to play a game of chess with builds in the lobby. I don't care what the opposition brings, but don't limit choices.
Oh and for the LOVE OF GOD, use the "save as" feature that have been on computers since the dawn of time to save a client version before rolling this out in case it flops. The biggest facepalm moment was right after the spawn system rollout, when everyone wanted the old system back and Eric said nope we cant, we didn't save it or we can't roll it back, something like that.
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@tropo, we're NOT ready for you to start testing yet!! And we do have contingencies for low pop, so you won't be stuck playing with no one. The contingencies you won't see in dev app testing yet, but we're accounting for that.
See! I told you we don't do things in haste, hahaha. Not even ready for you to start testing yet. There are I think about 1200 requests asking for dev app keys, so we have to get everyone coordinated first, which should be today and tomorrow. Then we need to set up the test session times.
You're welcome to poke around, but we will not be as ready today as we will be back 1/2 of this week.
So do not worry just yet. If you need someone to hold you tight. I will personally fly to Australia darn it!
(Ok, there might be a chance for me to not keep that promise, but I would love to visit Australia though.)
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More up to date information here....
Disclaimer:
If I say something should be happening and clearly is not, please let me know. This is because these features should work before we officially test. Matchmaking is not in a fully testable state right now and we're not ready to test all the use cases.
Futhermore, there are some use cases that we are explicitly not testing for in this current phase of matchmaking.
Keyvias will be posting an announcement soon regarding when testing will officially start.
RE: 3 engineer while queuring solo
For now, you can change all this after matchmaking puts you in a pre-match lobby. Whether or not we want to be strict and lock this in is TBD. We'll test and see how well this goes. We just don't want users to end up in a situation with 4 gunners. This will likely only be locked for Novice, so no worries there so far.
RE: Engineer Captain
Same as above. You can change in pre-match lobby.
RE: How easy crew loadouts
You can chat and voice chat. For now, we will be implementing a global countdown of 90 seconds. You can ready up before then and start faster. Each team will get one 30 second Add Time button for a total of 60 seconds added if both teams as for it, so 2 minutes max in pre-match lobby to change your class, ship, and loadouts.
RE: Match starts before ready
Not much we can do there but we'll be measuring how long it takes for matches to start and tuning the default starting value from the current 90s.
RE: Skill level/rating
Your account will have one rating regardless of classes. It is purely based on your wins/losses. If there is a huge problem with this, we can look to split it up. However, our assumption is that if you're high enough level at any class then you'll probably be playing better in your bad clas than a Novice or average player.
RE: Ratings based on personal skill or team average?
Ultimately, we'd like points awarded to be scaled appropriately to your personal rating. For now, we're taking a simplified approach to get things started.
RE: Dropping mid-match
For now, we won't penalize your rating if you drop mid-match. However, we will allow you to Resume the match you dropped out of. If you fail to resume then you your priority in queue will drop as a punishment for a short duration of time like for your next queue in matchmaking.
RE: Join on players
Yes, for now you can join on your friends in both matchmaking and custom games. We'll be evaluating the efficacy of it as we go along. This includes in pre-match lobby and mid-match. Again, we'll have to look at this carefully. The ratings systems will distribute points accordingly to new members in the match.
RE: Low population
We are not testing for low population right now. If there isn't enough players for a full match, matchmaking will currently fail. We will be thinking of low population contingencies but are strictly not testing it for now.
RE: Ratings measurement and creation
Please read more about ELO/Glicko rating systems. These systems are used in many sports and eSports worldwide. Your ratings is an accmulation of all your historic matches, not just the last 4-5 matches (it will just take 4-5 matches to generate an accurate and 'reliable' rating). There are other variables to measure the reliability and variance of your rating as well. We take all that into account when pairing you up with other players.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glicko_rating_system
We are using Glicko 2. You can even download the formulas that we will be basing ours off of from the Glicko 2 website to get a better understanding of how this works if you are curiously inclined.
RE: Save-as
There are a lot of things related to that issue that can make things difficult to roll back from things getting commited without adequete testing and people responsible for systems leaving the company. Some of these things are beyond our control but I take full responsibility. It often comes down to labor priorities and we chose to handle the situation with more design damage control than to completely roll it back. This is why we're testing out matchmaking piece by piece, step by step, to ensure that these kinds of things don't happen. Knee-jerk reactions to spawn changes were expected and dealt with to the best of efforts. However, knee-jerk reactions to an idea stated clearly as an idea discourages our efforts for transparency, which is something many people have asked for.
When posting your comments. Please consider your tone and note that we are always open to ideas. In return, we ask that you're also open to ideas that we present to you.
Matchmaking is taking place in phases. Not all features and functions are in place. Things will slowly be tested over the course of the next few months.
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I completely understand the logic behind phased testing of a concept from a design standpoint. However, it is hard for us the consumer, to fully commit a I like or dislike feeling to the concept because of that. If matchmaking were a cake, and you told me "Okay, I'm making you a cake", I'd ask "okay, what kind of cake"? And you tell me "I can't tell you yet, but first it will have a sponge-y, bread like inner bit". Okay, I like that, but I still don't know what else will be on it, so how can I say I will like it? What if you put lemon frosting on it? I hate lemon frosting. Until I can fully see and taste the cake, I can't just get behind the bread.
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We're aiming to give you just the cake first. Then maybe a bit of cake with some frosting. Maybe some of the frosting on its own. Then we'll make adjustments to the cake. Then the frosting. And repeat until your arteries explode.
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@Byron, yeah totally understand, but we'll still need to conduct testing in a way for us to get meaningful results. And really, some of the things are more nuanced. If you think about it in terms of your use case: Ex. this is what I like about the current system, how does the new system help or hinder this use case, and what is the gap or why does it hinder for example. This we can then readily digest and work on. Cuz ultimately we want to design a system that can help us address pressing issues with the game, but also make sure that valid use cases are taken into account.
What you actually don't need to right now is to commit to a like or dislike. In fact, that is perfect. This way, when you test, you are not biased either way. So this mindset is actually great. Just keep in mind that we are not trying to get you to like something, or to dislike something right now. We just want you to help us test it and give meaningful feedback so we can not only address the issues we set up to address, but also to make sure good use cases are not adversely affected.
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@ Dev
we are all adult's don't think anyone here has tested with bias
when i test some thing it will be my option as a gamer and aim would be to find bugs in the game
and if possible to break some thing in game i would probably do so
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I think this is too much... Improve the match list, don't get rid of it.
Lobbies have created some of the most memorable moments for me in this game. Sorry to post about this without testing nor reading the whole thread. But I think this issue is very important. You need to really think if the Goals outweigh the Ramifications on the first post. Severing the Social Aspect of this game for a Quick-Join system that would only benefit those who can't handle reading the lobby list. Then if the majority of the community uses Custom Matches, wont you still have the performance/bottleneck issues that are bringing this change?
When I play, I log on, see what friends of mine are on, browse the match list to see what maps/match-sizes are being played, and try to socialize with friends and newbs alike. This proposed idea will ditch what I do, someone who has played since beta, for a system that will be buggy for awhile.
I want to look at the menu to decide what pizza I want, not for the pizza man to bring me what he thinks i should have without my consent. Or even worse, this sounds more like grabbing a slice at the local gas station because i can't wait for the damned pizza man...
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@tropo, yep definitely. Lol, and of course appreciate all your help tropo!
Thanks a lot!
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@chango, actually not really for performance. The performance issue is in the match list itself.
And yeah, we are definitely conscious of the socialization aspects of everything, and we're trying to account for that, so no disagreements there. Thanks!
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When dealing with a problem in life, I follow the KISS mentality. Keep It Simple, Stupid. I feel like you are trying to solve simple problems with a complex solution. I don't really see the need for this. Gives us more options in creating lobbies, setting filters, to create a way to find matches easier.
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In regards to skill ranking I actually think it's rather important to separate pilot skill from gunner/engineering skill since the skill set is so astronomically different.
As someone who's played more than my share of goi I consider myself a pretty good pilot and have a fantastic win % as a pilot. Interestingly enough though my win ratio as an engineer is decidedly average. Now I don't know if this is typical of most pilot mains or if its just me trying to train too many people but as a pilot I always feel like I have control of the battlefield and the ever present opportunity to win. Since my only responsibility is to fly I'm able to survey the battlefield and manage both my crew to optimal efficiency and my ally (and crew) until we win. As an engineer I'm too focused on fixing and shooting things to take in the full picture.
Pilots select ships, strategies, loadouts and builds and have the largest bearing on winning or losing. They should have a seperate rating and that rating should be given more weight in matchmaking.
Obviously a pilot is nothing without their crew and even the best pilot is only as good as his worst crewman. Still I feel a pilot should carry a bit more weight with their ranking equal to a third of a ships total rank and the crew making up the rest.
Now people may wonder why I've lumped engineers and gunners together. At the higher levels of play people like Yiski and N-Sunderland have mastered gunning and engineering respectively. No one would think of having Yiski main engineer or Sunder gun however almost every ship has at least one gungineer and a ranking system can't really determine that Yiski is winning every match as a gungineer and Sunder every match as a main so for now it makes more sense to combine them.
Piloting though is just so different, and I really think it should be seperated.
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I also wanted to state a concern I have with the automatic lobby starting timer.
Generally speaking the majority of my time in the lobby is spent trying to cajole and communicate with my crew to take the required tools for the build/strategy I plan on using.
Normally this doesn't take much time since experienced and communicating players can manage this within 10 seconds. Unfortunately newer players and players who don't speak English often take a very long time for me to explain which tools and or how to take the tools required. Typically if I'm not playing with clan mates roughly 50% of my matches will include a player that takes longer than average to equip the suggested loadout.
One way to speed up the process would be to have ship loadouts also include crew loadouts. What I mean is that if for instance if I wanted to run a three engineer close range brawler pyramidion I could set the loadouts for all three crew members. When I joined a match or crewmembers joined one I was in they would automatically equip one of the three required engineer loadouts. They could of course change it if they wanted however we wouldn't have to bother going through all the necessary asking, explaining and other that tends to hold up match starts.
Without something like this implemented I could foresee myself joining a match with only 45 seconds left on the count down, asking someone to change a ridiculous or unoptimized loadout, get no response or an incorrect loadout and deciding to leave the match rather than go through the frustration of playing with an incapably equipped/ uncommunicative crew thereby either holding up the entire match or leaving a ship without a pilot.
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hmmm with the classes skill being measure all as one
im a great pilot and a extremely good gunner but due to lag disinking and over stuff i would honest say im the worst engineer in the game
also under your current rating system the worst the pilot dose the better the crew dose so is it wins per ship or wins per games ?
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@Smollett yeah noted. Right now based on what we set, you'll have more than 45s, but that's adjustable of course. It's one of the things we're collecting data for. By the way, when are you coming in? Let me know!
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@chango, if you want to ask me, the decision is reached after a long thought process and feedback collection, but it's actually pretty simple for me. Given the the persistent issues with the current system, given it being the single biggest limiter of growth performance wise, can I still patch up the current system. I determined that the answer is no longer yes after months of patching it up. Can we devise a new system that can address the issue of the old system and keep the benefits of the old? I think I can. It'll take iterations, willingness to work with the community, and time to improve it, but I think I can. Change is tough, because it makes people uncomfortable, but once I feel like pros and cons tips the other direction, change is needed, and I can't be afraid to make that change.
Also, keep in mind that as we go to co-op and console, as Gilder pointed out, we're going match making for sure.
Thanks
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How about the opposite of a ready button? If enough captains agree, the timer gets delayed a little longer.
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@Queso, I think I'm already a step ahead :D Well, I'm not sure if I'm ahead, but I have already taken a step. You'll find that the ready button is still there, and you'll find that there is another button for extra time. So, in the match lobby, there is a countdown with a preset time (this is system configurable obviously). The countdown's aim is to try to strike that balance between enough time for readiness even with new players and taking forever. If team captains hit ready by majority, the match can start sooner. But, if teams need more time, each team can hit a button for extra time once (the time again is configurable by system). Initially we are configuring initial start to be 90s or 120s, and extra time to be 30s each. So default time in lobby is tentatively set at 150s-180s. In custom match, it behaves exactly like it currently does. Every match time in testing will be logged automatically, so we can use data to adjust timer if we need.
This is the mechanics, and of course people will want to know the reasoning and logic. I 'll pause and just give you guys a chance to think about it, and I can come back and answer questions. For now though, need to get some work done.
Thanks!
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@chango, but one of the most important things is balancing ease of match start with socializing. It's definitely top of mine for us. Thanks!
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Bubbles, the problem is that the sort of scenario where a new player needs to be slowly taught the basic user interface and how to change loadouts will never happen in dev app.
I'm still opposed to a hard time limit of any sort, because there will ALWAYS be a newbie confused or clueless enough to exceed it, and then the whole game is ruined because one ship is practically missing a crewmember. Captain-set loadouts would solve this though.
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I'm seeing the captain loadout thing showing up a lot. And there's some pros and cons for it. First you have to decide whether it's suggested or mandatory (ie: forced upon the crew). If it's mandatory, you're open to lots of trolling and players lose a lot of control. It'd be a lot less fun all around. If it's only suggested, then you get the players who will straight up ignore it. Essentially it'd just be a faster way of saying "hey, you should bring x, y, and z" and having them not do it (whether they don't know how, or don't want to). And it ends up solving very little, except saving the captain 10 seconds to type or say the loadouts they recommend.
Right now, the longest thing holding most matches from starting is the lack of a full match. Once a match is filled, it usually only takes a little time to get going. This can be extended if there's a player or two not doing exactly what the captain wants, and in my experience is usually caused by those players speaking a different language, or actually being afk/tabbed out since the match was taking so long to start.
With matchmaking, you get put into a full match instantly, cutting out a huge amount of time that would be spent waiting for the match to fill; and also providing more incentive for players to stick around instead of wandering off while they wait.
As for new players needing to learn to change their loadouts and such, that's probably something to toss into a tutorial, helping them learn the interface; something a lot of them have issues with for a short while when they start playing.
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Hey Omni,
With Matchmaking the newbies who don't know anything should not be placed with the vets so vets won't have to take the time to try to completely teach the game to a new player.
There will still be novice matches and even if they don't select novice matches they'll be matched with people around their level.
If the amount of time we give isn't enough we can always change it. We could even make it a different time for novice matches than for normal ones.
If you're being matched up and have to train newbies though than matchmaking has failed.
As for slowly introducing players to the UI, that shouldn't be the job of the players either. We love and appreciate every vet who goes out of his way to explain why using explosive ammo in a gatling isn't the best idea, but it should be our job as developers to explain. Currently entirely new tutorials are being made because you're right the community has to do a lot of self teaching, but really what we want the community to do is focus on simply playing and having fun.
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takes me over 60 second to type instructions to a new player they offern don't read them
mabye a button that people can invite the player on there ship to take the correct load out
but im a little worried trolls would abuse that
here is my idea
(http://i.imgur.com/zUNAHMT.png)
edit: took me about 40 mins to do above work and some people posted some what of the same thing while i was doing that
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Something like Tropos idea could be an incredible time saver.
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Ya but Matt, remember that sometimes we want to be with the newbies. Either for recruitment or to teach new friends joining the game, whatever the reason, we will need to spend time intentionally at the low levels. Nevermind at the less than optimal times when no one is on and 3 games are running.
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I really like Tropo's idea as well. The interface to send a loudout suggestion would need a design too though, and that might be a little bulky.
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I'd suggest making a suggestion thread or such devoted to that topic, so this thread doesn't get too derailed.
Personally I'd wait for that phase of matchmaking testing to see exactly how well or how not well the timer works before trying to implement something that's based around the current lobby system wait times.
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Matchmaking should ensure that there is an even skill level across all ships. Having an 3 experts+1 noob fighting against 4 average players is ok in my book.
I don't mind being on a ship with (talkative) new players as long as the other ship has the same average skill across their crew.
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muse in the dev app oready have a cool ui for my idea above
(http://i.imgur.com/fOzO4nB.jpg)
to the anal forum lords im sorry i do not live on forums or know forum etiquette so sorry if im de-railling some thing
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I apologize if my post came off as a little short, I'm trying to be more concise. I think it's an interesting idea, and I do appreciate the effort you put into it. But matchmaking is a large and complex feature, and it might be best for the thread not to focus on one particular aspect too much. While the idea is loosely related to wait times, it's not directly related to matchmaking itself. What I'm suggesting is creating a new thread devoted to that topic so it can get the focus it deserves without being buried under the other matchmaking discussions (or possibly overshadowing the rest of the matchmaking discussions).
https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,2795.msg47798.html
There's a link to an older post about the Captain Loadout concept. You can add to it, or start a brand new thread. And I do apologize again if this seems rude, as that's not my intention at all.
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As for the match timer itself, I still think it should be tested as originally planned to see how functional it can be. A lot of our assumptions right now are based on the Match List system we're all used to, which tend to take a really long time to get set up properly for a variety of reasons. By instantly filling the match, it already cuts out a huge portion of the wait time. And since that wait time is gone, it's easier for players to stay focused on the match rather than tab out or go afk, which is one of the big reasons getting players to listen to loadout suggestions is difficult. Essentially there's a lot of little interacting variables that are different between match list and matchmaking.
Although we still need to go through the first phase of testing before we get too caught up on the other details.
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Ok after seeing revisions now...I think what your trying to do is good, it still feels cumbersome at this time, but it is progressing. However, I now for sure know I want that lobby list back. When I pub run on other classes, I don't just join any crew. Matchmaking would force me into joining captain harpoon brain's ship, which will only force me to go back into matchmaking again to reroll. I'll eventually sit forever in match making. This is extra steps which just don't appeal to me when I used to hop in, scout out the players, ships, and opposition, then decide who to crew for.
I think if you go forward with this and nix some form of lobby list functionality, you will lose quite a few players. But I'm hopeful with it's direction. Look forward to seeing future revisions.
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Ok after seeing revisions now...I think what your trying to do is good, it still feels cumbersome at this time, but it is progressing. However, I now for sure know I want that lobby list back. When I pub run on other classes, I don't just join any crew. Matchmaking would force me into joining captain harpoon brain's ship, which will only force me to go back into matchmaking again to reroll. I'll eventually sit forever in match making. This is extra steps which just don't appeal to me when I used to hop in, scout out the players, ships, and opposition, then decide who to crew for.
I think if you go forward with this and nix some form of lobby list functionality, you will lose quite a few players. But I'm hopeful with it's direction. Look forward to seeing future revisions.
I believe you can safely leave a matchmaking lobby 3 times in a row before it actually counts against your leave count, making you able to "dodge" matches for one reason or another.
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But there would still be a load time. GOIO has not been the most bug free game when it comes to loading in. Plus there would be a 2 min spot saved on those ships unless this is remedied. If not, you're going to have a lot of AI ships and people like me with climbing leave counts. It just is not a detriment when the price is playing with some bad players.
Going to see a lot of people jumping in, jumping out. Matchmaking promotes playstyles for people who just don't have any attention span. Unfortunately, I think you might need to do this to get them active in GOIO. But also on the downside, one of the major ways to police this is to institute a cooldown system where it locks the player out of the matchmaking system if they abuse it. Sort of a soft ban. MMOs have had this feature and it generally works to keep players in matches because they didn't want to sit around for 15 mins till the lock was removed.
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After trying to read this thread through, i got only to page 5 and got tired.
A lot of the concerns here repeat themselves.
On all this negative note of comments and concerns (Which are by the way very valid, and I will not argue with any of the statements), i would like to ask you players something:
Why do you think that matchmaking in general is such a bad system? There are so many games out there that use matchmaking apart from League of Legends and Dota 2 to see how bad it is. What about games like Starcraft 2? I see that matchmaking potentially is going to improve a lot of things.
How many times have you been stuck to a lobby for 30 minutes because you get 14/16 players and the few people that stay in the match to wait for these last 2 players leave every 5 making you wait even longer?
You guys are saying that it will kill your ability to find custom matches to play with your competitive friends, well let me ask you this:
How is it different to matchmaking? All the difference is that right now, you have a list of matches to choose from and the biggest thing is join an already running match. With matchmaking it will be almost the same apart from your choice of a specific lobby. You will still have the ability to leave a certain lobby you know, and you will have the ability to re-queue and find another 1. You only won't be able to choose which 1 in the first place and to join running matches. But as it stands even with match list - Before you join the lobby, you don't know who is playing in that lobby.
I do believe that if matchmaking going to go through, it will not be a problem to make lobbies that you left to be in a lower priority in your next queue - That way you won't be joining the same match over and over after leaving.
I think that this system will do 1 big thing - That is filling a lobby with people in less than 30 seconds. The captains would be the ones to decide when to start the match any ways, so if you want to socialize, or wait for a certain player to leave - You'll still be able to do it....
Hell even if you want a specific player to join your game - It is still possible because they haven't removed "Spectator" slots. So your friend can join as a spectator and then swap slots with anyone in the active ships.
I would like to note again, i do not disagree that removing match list is going to take away an experience that older players are familiar with and like.... But at the same time, just like you guys have mentioned you guys didn't like "Scramble" either and over time it was refined to suit you all. Why then to be so resistant to a change that in the long run going to make the game better?
Specially Tropo (Only because of a phrase you said =D )
I do understand and you have no idea how much i agree about the fact that this is not CoD and that we are not supposed to suffer because of 12 year old kiddies that don't have patience nor know what they want. But at the same time, these exact kiddies are the people who ruin my experience already as it is by leaving mid match and by leaving lobbies after waiting for only 1 minute even with the existing match list.... I personally do not like to wait 40 minutes in a lobby just to start a 15-20 minute match to then wait again for about 30-40 minutes to start the next because 3 people left (Because it's already been over an hour since they started the game and have things to do in their life)
I personally do not like that i come back from work and able to play 1-2 matches at max and it takes me almost 2 hours where i mostly wait in a lobby.... This is a flaw and is being addressed and i am happy with it.
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How many times have you been stuck to a lobby for 30 minutes because you get 14/16 players and the few people that stay in the match to wait for these last 2 players leave every 5 making you wait even longer?
Not very often. People leave, but most stay long enough until the lobby is full and once the lobby is full it only takes so long for both teams to be ready (unless there is a troll).
You guys are saying that it will kill your ability to find custom matches to play with your competitive friends, well let me ask you this:
How is it different to matchmaking? All the difference is that right now, you have a list of matches to choose from and the biggest thing is join an already running match. With matchmaking it will be almost the same apart from your choice of a specific lobby. You will still have the ability to leave a certain lobby you know, and you will have the ability to re-queue and find another 1. You only won't be able to choose which 1 in the first place and to join running matches. But as it stands even with match list - Before you join the lobby, you don't know who is playing in that lobby.
If matchmaking will put me into a lobby that I want to leave immediately and then have myself re-queuing for who knows how long, then matchmaking has failed if only once. For this case I would propose a preview function, which lets you see the lobby before you decide to either join it or not. If re-queing is going to be happen rather often, you might wanna speed the process up.
Re-queuing itself could turn out to be a rather tiresome process, because you have to wait with nothing else left to do. And you don't even know if there is a lobby around your skill-level, so it could be very likely that you are going to be put in a lobby with much more or much less experienced players. If in your situation you think this is bad you have to wait again for another lobby.
I do believe that if matchmaking going to go through, it will not be a problem to make lobbies that you left to be in a lower priority in your next queue - That way you won't be joining the same match over and over after leaving.
Probably, but is this a guarantee?
I think that this system will do 1 big thing - That is filling a lobby with people in less than 30 seconds. The captains would be the ones to decide when to start the match any ways, so if you want to socialize, or wait for a certain player to leave - You'll still be able to do it....
Except you won't. There will be a timer that will force start the match, no matter who is ready or not. Of course the match starts rather quickly once the lobby is full and captains can add more time, but if things go really bad then the timer forces a captain/team to play when they are not ready or it forces one or many to leave the lobby.
Hell even if you want a specific player to join your game - It is still possible because they haven't removed "Spectator" slots. So your friend can join as a spectator and then swap slots with anyone in the active ships.
If this is the only way to spectate and the only reason why spectator slots exist, then I question how valuable spectating is to MUSE.
I do aggree that matchmaking can make the game a whole lot better, just by filling up lobbies much quicker, but the lack of other features (joining mid-match, spectating at will) and must of even more other featueres (add everybody to friends, else face the re-queing! This is just speculating though, who knows if you really have to add everybody as friend.) and certain questionable features (the timer of doom, changing enemies after each match instead of staying in the same lobby) make me prefer match list more.
I do not care if I have to wait 10 minutes more for my match then, if I am going to play this game, I make sure I have a lot of free time going on since a match in this game can vary from between 5-10 minutes or even take an entire hour.