The forums are all about getting the opinions of the community. In this game, above many other games, the community is the most important. You have a game where IF you do not have a good, solid, supportive community, you will no longer have a game. Or at least a game people want to play. This community is based upon players being able to communicate and player WELL with each other and to retain players. Without player retention the game grows weaker and more people will leave. I've been in this game for about a year and a half. I start when there was not many players on during any given time (60-80 players) and it was the veterans of the game that made me interested enough to stay. They had so much passion for this game and the community. Spring of this year the game flourished and we were seeing massive numbers of players on (200-400 players), clans were growing quickly, competitive play was high and the community was active. Since then there has been a drastic drop off of players starting this fall and again the numbers are low (50-70 players during slower times, 90-120 players during active times on the weekends). This is because many players are bored and wanting new content. There are a large number of new players...yet not many on them are retained and a lesser number of them are willing to listen to veteran players.
You listened to the community, Tropo specifically, and added the Captain Recommended Load outs!!! THIS WAS MUSE DOING IT RIGHT! Listening to the community and creating something that works well and benefits game play. Other things you listened to the community on where the fixed in the 1.3.8 Hotfix of being able to see the ships on the re-spawn map and the invisible wall on Canyons.
The 1.3.8 and 1.3.8 Hotfix have seemed to get many people in the community very vocal. Most of them being the Veterans of the game. This is because the Veterans are the ones that have made this game what it is. They have stayed in the game for 1+years. They have worked hard and put in literally 2,00 - 4,000 hours into playing this game...that's 83-166 DAYS in the last year or 2. THAT is A LOT OF TIME! So when they are getting "aggressive" "hostile" "angry" on the forum over these updates, there is a good reason for it and it's not just because they want to "nit pick". It is because they LOVE this game, LOVE the community, and as much as MUSE doesn't want to see this game die off, they don't either. I've read this whole forum post. What is looks like to me are 2 sides of a civil war inside of Guns. 1 side the veterans and the players trying to give feed back, yet some frustrated and angry. On the other side the representatives of MUSE, that want us to believe that these things are for the better but not actually having open conversations.
Neither side completely right, neither side completely wrong. And in order for this game to NOT DIE (yes this game will die, just like games similar to it like Hawken, if the community and developers don't work together).
The developers gave us the match making system because a lot of the community was complaining about the unbalance lobbies and the long lobby times. When this was in Dev App, many players stated their concerns for the current system and asked for it to be improved more before release. That didn't happen.
Let's say you're in the top 2% of the glicko2 score. Your ability to win consistently in many situations makes you a high rated player. Let's say you matchmake and there are 20 people in the queue and all the other games are either full or in-progress. In this situation you'll be match with probably the lesser players on your side to make the match as close to fair as possible. Does this mean you'll lose more than if you could join any lobby and find one with a more favorable situation? It does.
You can't have balance and be a very good player and not be match with lower allies (when you don't crew form or friend join.) Mathematically, it just doesn't work.
The players were complaining in 1.3.7 because they kept getting in lobbies with players that where either lower or higher level than them and "Pup Stomping" would take place which is bother frustrating for the higher level players that would have easy wins and the lower level players that would lose over and over with no chance of even learning the way the game should be played because they'd get killed so fast. This glicko 2 match making system has NOT helped this problem. Yes I understand how it works and why it was thought to be a good thing to implement, so please don't respond with that info. The type of system that the players of this game was looking for was one that would put higher levels with higher levels and lower levels with lower levels and the mid range players would be thrown into the mix no either side. With the understanding that the leveling system wasn't showing the "true" skill of the player, MUSE created the new Leveling system. WHICH I ACTUALLY THINK WILL WORK! Muse implemented the new leveling system to help create more balanced lobbies....but the system chosen to create the "balance" lobby is not the right one for this game.
The other reason that MUSE added the match making system was due to wait time in lobby...supposedly they were getting a lot of complaints about "Lobby of Icarus". Like Keyvias mentioned earlier this system was supposed to fix this. But It really hasn't. Yes, In the actual lobby there is only a limited amount of time players can stay in that lobby before the game starts automatically. BUT now if you have 4+ players in crew formation that you want to play with, you sit in que for 20+ mins (I have timed this on multiple occasions). Obviously when there are 150-200 players on the time is maybe only 10 mins but when it's the week days, since many players have left the game and there are only 50-80 players on during those times the que can be even higher than 20 mins). So instead of "Lobbies of Icarus" we now have "Que of Icarus" and frankly I would much rather sit in "Lobbies of Icarus". "Lobbies of Icarus" is one of the things that made this community what it is. Players know each other on a personal level because of these lobbies. When you jump on a game because you actually know they players and want to play with them THAT is an amazing community. Many of the players have met each other in real life, some players have started relationships with each other, many many of the players go and play other games in between the time they play GOIO and that is all because the lobbies are what made the players able to talk to one another and form bonds.
With the low player base...there will never be a system that removed the long waits and frankly some players don't want that removed.
Suggestion:
1) Keep the new leveling system implemented in 1.3.8 but create a match making system that puts higher levels with higher levels and lower level with lower levels. Keep the ability for us to see what matches our friends are in cause that is a good feature.
2) Put the levels back in from of the players names in lobby...that was silly. We can still see every ones levels in their profile and in chat. All it did was make players take 1 extra step to see if it would be a "Pup stomp" or not. If you go with my recommendation in #1, your claim of Veteran players leaving lobbies will actually stop.
3) Make the timed lobbies a preference that can be chosen. Similar to how swap lobbies was. This way the players that want to jump in a game and start quickly can CHOOSE "timed lobbies" but the players that maybe having a really fun time with friends or clan practice or clan vs clan matches or any other reason why people may want to stay in lobby longer can so choose.
So please...MUSE and the Community of Guns> WE NEED TO WORK TOGETHER!
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Why? what if you liked how the previous match went? maybe it was crazy intense and you want to rematch.
Here's how matches look right now: