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 
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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