Team Stacking - Match Balance

[dragonmere]

I could foresee a few slight problems with any sort of a matchmaking system.

This community, as much as I love it, just isn't big enough yet. If the Gents loaded all their best players into two ships on one team, and joined into this proposed "queueing" system, today, right now, about how long of a wait until a "team of similar skill level" is available? Sure, it could happen, but it would probably take quite a while, and there's the distinct possibility of there not being any team whatsoever online at this very moment that would be "similar skill level". In bigger games that use these MOBA style ranking match-ups, I'm assuming there's a lot more than 1,000-2,000 concurrent players. There needs to be a multitude of potential good fits at any given point in time to even consider a matchmaking system. If there's not several teams of very comparable skill level ALREADY waiting in the queue, that ship of Gents is never going to form up and wait for basically nothing. Unfortunately, I really don't think this game has the numbers to do it right now. Hopefully in the future this point is moot.

Then onto the issue of any kind of a "rank/score system" in this game. If it exists and is publically viewable, you are going to have people trying to 'win' the ranking system. No matter what the metric for rank is, win/loss kill/death total games played, etc., you will have a group of players doing nothing but "grinding" that statistic until it's perfect. I could see the possibility of new groups doing in-house matches to boost their own win count. Or people refusing to play/rage quitting matches they cannot very obviously win. This will pretty much invalidate the ranking system. If a new group could jump in and artifically boost their ranking by gaming the system, what is the point of the ranking system?

 Second problem with ranking players would be detracting from actual team-work gameplay. Any point in time where someone is playing a match to boost an individual statistic rather than focusing on a teamwork spirit, it detracts from this game. We already deal with this in achievement farmers, and there is no real benefit from having a high level in game. Imagine the problem if there was another ranking, but one that had actual effect on matchmaking or leaderboards and what not.

Also I don't think trying to apply one ranking metric across all three classes would make sense at all.  What if there's an engineer who does NOTHING but tank the hull, but his regular captain is very highly strategic and meticulous with planning every move. If they're both on the same ship most of the time, even though one does basically nothing but click and the other puts out considerable effort and expertise every match, would the two of them deserve the same rating score if they decided to queue separately for matches?

The only way to make a ranking score that would NOT detract from gameplay and be able to accurately gauge skill would be to rate an entire red or blue team at once, with specific crew. That way, the only way to increase ranking would be by playing cohesively as a team, with no individual having any opportunity or motive to "go on their own" to boost their personal stats. Problem is, again, this game does not have the number of player to even begin thinking about a system like this. Not to mention the difficulty in putting together the exact same 8-16 people on a very regular basis. Not very likely.

So I have my own idea for a way to deal with "stacked" lobbies. If you enter a lobby and suspect the other team of being "stacked", decide if you want to fight against a "stacked" team. If you don't want to fight against a "stacked" team, find or create a different lobby. Problem solved.

[Thomas]

First to Geno,

I should clarify that that is a hypothetical flow chart for how a queue/matchmaking system would possibly work. A lot of those systems are in the game (and that's good) and some others would have to be created. The overarching idea is to show it's possible to let players play with their friends, while also allowing for greater randomization and fair matches.




Next to Phoenix,

"Personally I don't see a problem with the game as far as stacking is concerned. If anybody joins and they see a high level crew they usually leave which leads to an empty lobby so you have people like me who are stuck in an empty lobby because we are high level..."

"...its about creating a team and developing as a team to be the best you can be and how can your team develop if you have to split up all the time to make it fair..."


You have actually illustrated some of the problem quite nicely, thank you.

Firstly you mention how your high skill team has to split up and work with new players to actually get the match going, and how that's not what you want to do. A very good point indeed. We don't want to force players apart from people they want to play with anymore than we want new players to stop playing after getting beaten by highly skilled and organized teams.

You want to make a great team and fight great opponents, showing off your skills. Shooting down rookies isn't nearly as exciting, and you don't get to be a better player by doing so.

And that's where matchmaking comes in. No longer do you have to sit in a lobby waiting for brave souls to show up. No longer do you have split your team just to get the ball rolling. You make your team, and the system finds enemies for you. Your team doesn't have to split up, and you'll be facing people who know their Spanner from their Heavy Clip. Still not good enough? Then you can always invite another clan for a match.


"Stop trying to make this game a ladder based system just leave it as it is, is it really that bad?"

I'm with you that the game should not be ladder based. I feel that splitting up the community into various chunks just isn't the right move, and would actually make finding matches more difficult. What I'm proposing is just using skill level to balance the teams. That's not saying everyone on the ship has to be between level 4-6, but rather that the average skill rating on each team should be similar. Meaning if you go into the random team queue, you could end up with a lvl 13, 2, 5, 6; and the other ship would have a similar range. (Of course I'm also proposing for a system that does a better job of evaluating skill).

So if you make your own team, and you're all lvl 10+, the system will try to find or generate a team with a similar average lvl.



"are there people leaving by the hundreds as they keep getting pounded on by high players not really, no. I play everyday and I rarely see more than 5 10+ players on during a weekday and any lower than that are usually just messing about in an ordinary game. There is no organised pub stomping you are seeing problems where problems do not exist."
[/b]


Now here's some more of the problem. Is the supposed pub stomping causing people to leave the game? You answer no, and then follow up by saying that you rarely see lvl 10+ players. Which is kind of contradictory. If new players stuck around longer, we'd have more mid-high level players. But are there hundreds of new players leaving the game? Yes actually.

http://steamcharts.com/app/209080#1y


That's a graph showing player numbers in GoIO over the past year, you can see high spikes during sale periods, followed by a rapid decline shortly after. During the recent October sale, the population rocketed over 2,000 players online at the same time. Before then it was at a steady 300 or so. Shortly after the sale period, the population drops back down dramatically; almost to exactly what it was before the sale.

You can see that player retention is a problem, particularly new players. This doesn't mean that getting crushed by highly skilled teams is the number one cause, but it is a thing that does in fact happen (I'm currently tracking the % of 'stacked' matches as well as the drop rate of teams that lose to a stacked team. I'm also not using the term 'stacked' in an offensive manner, just stating that one team holds a distinct advantage in experience and/or organization over the opposing team). Did you know that roughly 63% of the losing team in a 'stacked' match will drop out of the lobby?





@ dragonmere,

Everytime I hit enter, someone else responds. xD

I agree with you that the community is kind of small (see above). Part of my original proposal included this in the matchmaking. Where it would try to find a good match, and then start expanding the search to find the 'closest' fit. It may very well still be uneven, and that will reflect in the changes to rank/score post game. ie: if it is forced to match a group of amazingly perfect players against a team of people who keep shooting at their own ship, the winning team will have a negligible increase (if any) to their score/rank, where the losing team will have almost no (if any) decrease to theirs (assuming the better team won. If the underdogs get a victory, it would provide a large boost to them, and large decrease to the other team).


This is why the rank/score system would have to be carefully created. As I mentioned in my original post. >.> that no one read... *depressed*.
I also mention that any change to it could only occur in the matchmaking, meaning that if you did a custom match, it wouldn't make a difference. You'd have to punish people who leave more harshly, as well as making it easier to reconnect. I'll go ahead and try to create a hypothetical rank scoring system (different for each class) as an example of what I'm talking about later.


The system of avoiding stacked lobbies hurts the stacked team (making them wait for a long time or forcing them to 'bait' players in with colorful names). While forcing them to 'balance out' can force them to not play with the friends. And a lot of new players we used to have are not aware of the vast difference between themselves and the other teams of experienced players. With a queue/matchmaking system, they can slowly build up their skill as they get used to the game, and hopefully avoid the pub stomp.

Again, player retention. Our current system isn't very good at it. Maybe making things more balanced, and easier on everyone (high and low experience alike) will change that.

[zlater75@hotmail.com]

Ok.. I don't have problems with hypothesis or suggestions but if i think it wouldn't work i will say that and if i think it works i'll support it. The game is based on teamwork generally and a team will also work differently all the time so it's not easy or maybe even possible to make a skilllevel that would work in teh long run and set a standard. Games are alive and change. People change and there are patches.
I just don't want to see limiting or labeling as it were an individuals game as it's team/crew based. Which makes this issue hard. If current options work i don't like a change that would impact the fun, freedom and specialisation of the game. But in the end that doesn't matter so much. Neither of us decide. That is for Muse and their game. They listen but they also decide and so far so good.

[Thomas]

Possible Score/Rank System:
Here's one possible way this could work. It's just a concept, probably won't be adopted, and so obviously nothing is concrete, absolute, or un-debatable. We're also going to skip over the match-making concept.

The theory is to give each player a 'score' in each of their respective roles. In this system, it's a static score that is only changed during post match. The scores range from 0-2000 (totally arbitrary). They can go up or down a maximum of 50 points each match (again, arbitrary). Winning a match will increase your points (+personal score), while losing  match will decrease your points (55-personal score). The amount increased or decreased is based upon personal performance and some other factors. Now we math.



First we're going to take the (Avg Team Rank/Avg Enemy Team Rank) to get 'R'. So the higher your rank compared to the enemy, the larger R becomes. The lower your rank compared to the enemy, the lower R becomes.


Captain/Pilot
Depending on the match, the captains role is to keep the ship alive, kill the enemy, capture points, or defend points. Using those as the basis, we come up with this:

Damage Done/Total Damage * 30
(Damage Taken/Deaths)/(Total Damage Taken/Total Deaths) *30
(1-Deaths/Total Deaths) *30

Point Cap/Total Point Cap *30
Point Block/Total Point Block *30

Immediately you'll notice that all of these numbers end up as a ratio or % multiplied by 30 (30 is arbitrary). These numbers are then summed and divided by R (It will cap at 50, even if this number ends up higher). 30 was arbitrarily chosen because you're unlikely to get these numbers very high. For the pilot, that's all the damage done by your ship, taken by your ship. In a relatively even match, they should all be around .25 *30, which is 22.5 when all summed. If the match is perfectly even, R=1, and you'll get 22.5 points for winning, or lose 32.5 (for losing. Obviously). (In retrospect, that seems a little high for an even match, might need to lower the 30 to 20 or something). (Should probably toss in rebuild/repair for the captain/pilot too, with a low score modifier, ie: 5-10).

Why 55-personal score for the loser? Essentially this is so that even if you manage a magical '50', you'll still lose points for losing, even if it's not many. Most of these points are comparisons against the other ships, and highly dependent on your crew. This is just to give a number to add or subtract from your personal ranking.



Gunner
The gunners role is to shoot stuff, kill ships and components, and to a much lesser extant, keep things fixed. With that in mind:

Accuracy(%) * 20
Damage/Total Damage * 50
Component Kills/Total Component Kills * 20
Rebuild (explained below) * 5
Repair/Total Repair * 5


I'll explain the rebuild part below, because I got a little fancy with that. You'll see that the gunning takes a much higher precedent, but they can still get some points for rebuilding. I didn't do ship kills because that would just make gunners fight over the last shot. Instead I did components, which includes all sorts of happy things like engines, balloon, armor, and weapons. Then they'll still get points for damage. You'll notice it has a much higher number, this is because there's going to be engineers and such shooting as well, with lots of people dealing damage, the gunner can't expect too high of a % of the total damage. Then they're all summed, divided by R and still capped at 50. Again, numbers are arbitrary and will probably need to be reworked.



Engineer:
The engineers job is to keep the ship alive through repairs, rebuilds, putting out fires. They also keep the ship buffed and even go so far as to shoot down the enemy. Probably the busiest role.


Repair/Total Repair * 50
Rebuild (see below) * 20
Buff/Total Buffs (includes chem spray)* 10
Fires extinguished/Total Fires * 20
Accuracy * 5
Component Kills/Total Component Kills * 5
(1-Total Damage to Ship/Total Damage All ships)* 30



We're going to avoid explaining the rebuild and go from the bottom up. The 'total damage to ship/total damage all ships' is basically just a safety net for the engineer. There may be situations where their ship takes very little damage, giving them noting to repair/rebuild. So the lower damage the ship takes, the higher that value. Of course the more damage they take, the higher the other values should be (since there's stuff for you to repair/rebuild/put out). Buffs and chemical sprays take up a slot, but aren't very good for repair/rebuilding/ or even putting out fires. They should still get some points for using them, but not enough to make you go crazy with it and avoid helping your ship.

Engineers often act as secondary gunners and should receive some points for that. The numbers chosen might be a little low, especially if they're stuck on the gun a lot and don't need to go about fixing stuff. Wouldn't hurt for them to be higher (remember, arbitrary).

Finally we get to the 'rebuild' bit I've been building up. Rebuilds are nice, but I find them not as important as reaction time. Based off some of the achievements in the game, I thought it might work better to time them. Essentially you get 1 point for rebuilding within 5 seconds of something going down, 0.5 for rebuilding within 10, 0.3 for rebuilding within 20 seconds, and 0.1 after that. You then sum them and divide by the total number of rebuilds done on the ship. You shouldn't have to get the last hit on a rebuild, just help with it. This also ends up giving you a % which you multiply by a number. Then Sum it all up, divide by R and apply the result just as you would any other score. (still capped at 50).





This system uses a lot of comparisons to help set the scores. Essentially it's not how good 'you do' it's how good 'you do compared' to everyone else. Essentially if you gun poorly compared to the other people gunning, or repair not nearly as much as them, or can't capture/block as many points, you're going to gain less points for winning (because you're team essentially carried you), and you'll lose more for losing, since you shouldn't be rated that well.

It takes into account the average rankings on both teams, since it is a team game. If they're much higher ranked than you, you'll lose less points for losing, and win more for winning. But if you're a higher rank than them, it will be the opposite. The closer the rankings, the less impact R has.



Then with a proper matchmaking system, you can set up relatively even teams. Once the scores settle down (it will take players several rounds) players can be relatively confident their ranking is accurate. You do better, you go up. You do worse, you go down. All compared to other players.

-----------------------------------------------

With all that being said, the actual mechanics of how the rankings work should be hidden. This is just showing an example of how a system could work in this kind of game. I'd still try to have ranks shown, just so players know where they stand and what they're up against in a match. With the low population, players will likely end up against players who have a significantly higher or lower rank. The system is still set so that they won't be overtly affected by it, but it'll help them understand why the results were how they were. (There's other little quirks that would have to be employed, like reconnecting limits tweaked, punishment for leaving a match, etc)

[zlater75@hotmail.com]

Can you give an example what it would do and why say 5 matches of 2 vs 2 ?

Seeing the match and skill number i come to think of bf3 which i played a couple years actively that also has something similar. But it doesn't work there. it's just something more individual that doesn't really tell the persons actual skill-level vs calculated skillnumber per map. The hitreg fluctuates badly, the weapon balance is lacking and how people play around you affects your own gameplay. Statspadding and attacking bases is common. It could have been an ok game but the extra fuss, leveling to 145, way too many achievements, unlocks and logging just kills it for the common casual player. And the game has squads but it's rare to see anyone do actual teamwork as they just focus on their own stats and play more than the real cooperation. the "do what it takes to achieve x of y". Partly reason for the scepticism along with other points already made.

[Thomas]

Totally understandable. One way to avoid players like that is to not reveal how starts are calculated, although in this case they're all pretty obvious and common thing. Since they only affect your rank, and the only way to rank up is to win; I'd expect most people to be doing their best teamwise. Personally I don't think it's plausible to do separate ranks for different maps, ships, weapons, etc. So it'll never be perfect, it'll just be a pretty good guess.


For the example, we're going to be following a few players through different scenarios. (Also I'm taking out component kills because it seems redundant)


We'll start off with Johnny, a solo player who just gets hooked up with random teams. This is Johnny's first time playing GoI, so all his ranks start at 1000. He queues up and gets tossed into a match as a gunner. This match goes pretty rough, Johnny is a terrible gunner, but they still manage to squeak out a win. Both teams have an average rank of 1200.

Accuracy(%)=0.3 * 20
Damage/Total Damage=0.08 * 50
Rebuild (explained below)=0.0 * 5
Repair/Total Repair=0.001 *5

Sum = 10

Giving him a score of about 10 (rounded), since they're equal teams. With their win, his gunner ranks goes up to 1010.


He re-enters the queue and plays a gunner again which a whole new team, this time he has a better idea of what he's doing. His avg team rank is 1030, and the enemy is 1250. They end up winning. His stats this time are:

Accuracy(%)=0.5 * 20
Damage/Total Damage=0.10 * 50
Rebuild (explained below)=0.4 * 5
Repair/Total Repair=0.01 *5

Sum=17.05

Giving him a +21 (rounded up). Why not 17.05? Because his team had a smaller avg rank than the other enemy team. His score was divided by (1030/1250). His new gunner rank is 1031. As you can see, players will tend not to skyrocket up in the ranks.



He goes again, getting a gunner, new team. This time his avg team rank is 1200, and the enemies avg is 990. His team seems to have an edge, and he does about the same as last time, but they end up losing!

Accuracy(%)=0.55 * 20
Damage/Total Damage=0.09 * 50
Rebuild (explained below)=0.4 * 5
Repair/Total Repair=0.02 *5


Sum = 17.6
R=1200/990 = 1.2121
His personal score is 14.52 (his team had a higher rank, causing a score penalty. The greater the difference, the bigger the penalty/reward).

Since he lost, his score is 55-14.52 = 40.48
Making his new gunner rank 991.

His low performance in previous matches caused a small climb, but this poor performance along with his team outranking the enemy and still losing caused a much larger decrease.




Now we'll look into two trickier scenarios

Johnny plays again, and has the best game of his life! He's hitting just about everything and wrecking the enemy team. But the engineers on his team just aren't paying attention and the enemies get a win! Booo~! In this match, their avg rank was equal.

Accuracy(%)=0.8 * 20
Damage/Total Damage=0.30 * 50
Rebuild (explained below)=0.8 * 5
Repair/Total Repair=0.1 *5

Sum=35.5
Loss = 55-35.5 = 19 (rounded down). Making his new rank 972. You can see that his great performance cause a much smaller decrease (although not as small as his increases for performance. Maybe need to tweak the numbers?)


His last match for the day. He's full of confidence, but the captain is driving like a complete scrub, causing him to miss nearly all his shots! His avg team rank is 900 while the enemy is 1200.

Accuracy(%)=0.1 * 20
Damage/Total Damage=0.02 * 50
Rebuild (explained below)=0.4 * 5
Repair/Total Repair=0.02 *5

Sum = 5.1
R=900/1200=0.75, making his score 6.8. Obscenely low. With the loss, he gets a -48. Quite a huge loss, and not even his fault!
This is probably the most glaring problem in my proposed ranking system. Along with pilots having an abysmal crew. I can find a way to compensate for engineers dealing with bad team mates, but how do manage with gunners? You can't reward them for missing, and you can't give them points for your ship not taking damage like the engineers. You can't give them points for the ship taking damage either, because that could lead to a crazy amount of points. Or maybe that's ok?


The other poor scenario being a captain/pilot with a terrible crew. How do you lessen the severity of a loss (or the reward for the win) when you crew doesn't shoot or fix well? I suppose one method could be to alter the (total damage/deaths)/(total damage everyone/total deaths everyone). To where you get a higher % for taking less damage before a death? I think that would work. Maybe. If you were a good pilot, and they were terrible engineers, they wouldn't fix it as much before you were taken out. But if you were a bad pilot, and they were bad engineers, it'd be the same situation. Although I suppose the other parts of your score would reflect that. So yeah, that could be changed.



If an engineer is good on a bad team, they can still get a high score by repairing and rebuilding rapidly. However, if an engineer is on a great team, there's not a lot to repair/rebuild, and buffing and such only gets you so far. That's why there's the (1-Total Damage to Ship/Total Damage All ships). The less damage you take, the higher your score. However, you can still be a bad engineer and take no damage. And again, the other parts of your score should represent that.



-------------------------------
So it's far from perfect, but it's a feasible rough idea. You do well, you get more points for winning, and lose less for losing. You do poorly, you earn less for winning, and lose more for losing. This is all based on everyone else's performance as well, and even the estimated team balance. And while it can't perfectly protect you from bad players on your team, their poor performance should have already lowered their rank in previous matches, lowering your team's avg rank; and thus causing you to get a higher reward for winning, and a lower penalty for losing.

[Commodore Phoenix]

So I have a question if you do well in a game against high levels you get more points, what about the high levels I guess they just get a crap score which is, I'm also guessing, their fault for playing in a lower level lobby. however this is the only lobby that had any spots available what happens to them? do they get a fair score?

You aren't thinking about high levels only low there are more players here than just the ones that play for one game and leave there are the dedicated players whose scores will be affected by this.

Also you seem to think that there are a lot of high level players in this game which on an average day there aren't.

[Thomas]

Well you can guess the outcome based on the system. In this fictional rank system, there's a queue system that tries to match players as best it can to players of a similar rank. (In my head it uses the avg rank of each team, meaning you can have a whole rainbow of different ranks).

There will certainly be times the high ranks have to face the low ranks. In most situations the high ranks will win. They will receive a lower addition to their score than if they played just as well against a similar ranked team. In the same way that the lower rank team will lose less points. If this were an mmorpg, you could compare it to killing mobs for experience. Killing mobs lower than your level gives less exp, while killing things around your level gives average exp, and killing the things much higher than your lvl give great exp. It'd be silly to give players a massive, or even regular score increase for crushing a team that barely poses a challenge.

That's fair. Essentially these high rank teams are near the top of the charts anyways, and the score doesn't do anything but increase your rank. Once the match is over, that personal score you got is gone, and all your left with is your rank number, which is already high.

I can't imagine how this favors one skill level over another, as it's only purpose is to determine skill level.

----------------

So we lead in with an example. We'll pick a player on each side, the captains. The high rank team is 1800, the low rank is 600. That's an R of 3 for High, and 0.3333 for Low. We'll say it's a death match. It ends up being a slaughter, 5-0.

Captain High Rank (1800):
Damage Done/Total Damage=0.3 * 30
(Damage Taken/Deaths)/(Total Damage Taken/Total Deaths)=0.4 *30
(1-Deaths/Total Deaths)=1*30

Sum = 51. They've done so well they broke the 50 point cap on skill alone.


Captain Low Rank (600):
Damage Done/Total Damage=0.2 * 30
(Damage Taken/Deaths)/(Total Damage Taken/Total Deaths)=0.1 *30
(1-Deaths/Total Deaths)=0.4 *30

Sum=21, a pretty average score (they did some damage)


High rank wins, their new rank is 1800+ 51/3 = 1817

Low rank loses, their new rank is 600-(55-21/0.333)= 595           (21/0.333 > 50, and therefore gets capped at 50)


Low rank probably would have lost more points, I think I set the damage they did a little high. But the point stands.


High rank has an increase, low rank has a decrease. What more could you want?

[Commodore Phoenix]

The fact that high ranks have to lose points because of the opponents they faced it shouldn't matter who you face also its unfair on the lower levels as they lost points when they faced a high level captain surely they should get points just for trying it.

[Thomas]

Points don't do anything besides give a rough estimate of your rank. In a system where you gain points by losing, everyone starts hitting the 2000 cap. You could always have no cap, but then the gap in skill level just increases infinitely, and you're back to square one.

Winning earns your points. The greater the enemy, the greater the points. Losing loses you points. The greater the enemy, the less the points lost.


Ideally you'd be facing people around your rank -most of the time-. Losing lowers your points, but the better you do compared to the other players, the less you lose. Winning will earn you points, but if you do awful, they won't go up very much.


Ultimately the idea is to create a nice spread of players across the ranks. Inevitably the best players will end up on the top, and the worst will inhabit the bottom.

Again, points don't do anything. It's not like money, or credits, or even a score in a classic video game.




And a system that rewards points purely on a win/loss neglects individual skill. You could have a terrible player constantly group with great players and shoot up rapidly with them. You could have a great player rapidly sink in rank by being paired with awful players. It stops being an individual rank, and more about how many times you get lucky with a good team (or unlucky with a bad team). By putting the individual element in there, players rise and fall at different rates based upon their relative performance.

And again, if you win, you get points. You lose, you lose points. The amount of either depends on the difference between the ranks. Going back to the mmorpg analogy, you're asking to get a level up from killing lvl 1 slimes on your level 70 character.

[Commodore Phoenix]

Not at all what I'm actually asking is why is this system better than the one we already have there is no "Oh youre better as you have played more games than us and won" it's your better because you have played hundreds of games and have earned valuable knowledge not based on statistics but on gameplay actually gameplay not your so called gameplay like how many parts did you rebuild and so on and so forth. In my ship I aim to have my ship in the least vulnerable places at the least nice time giving my crew the ability to keep the ship alive without having to not man the guns, all the stats you use like kill parts and repair stuff are very likely to be messed around, what about support ships ones that weaken the enemy but destroy no real parts, what about when you have a captain that only ever rams so you never have a chance to fire or when you are always getting ganged and so you don't have time to repair, there are so many things you cant factor into this idea merely because they aren't quantifiable.

The system we have shows skill based on achievements, yes, but these achievements are hard as hell to get sometimes, so thats one reason we dont need points, skill is determined through actual gameplay and levels are only seen as a rough idea, which are more often accurate than not, of their skill. Also if we were to do this points based we cant expect the people who are good at the game but play rarely to get a good level I know a few level 8s who rarely play more than once every two weeks but they got to level 8 as they are good they could get through the achievements as they are good players.

I don't like seeing this game as an mmorpg its not its an airship combat simulator there is no role play here so stop using that analogy it doesn't work.

[zlater75@hotmail.com]

 

Yeah.. The "what" got described a bit better.. but i still lack an answer for "why" and fail to see how this would really decrease stacking without the cost of the fun, casual or even creative aspect. What i see from it is it would instead increase players wanting to go to good teams, good crews, good clans and try to maintain their scores and forced to improve constantly to not lose an upwards curve or battling for something else than the teamwork. And wouldn't that end up as stacking teams?
The ranks aren't important in goi imo since it goes to 15. Skill shouldn't define people. The attitude and social skills may define more in GOI. The achievements are well thought through to enhance teamwork.. "help your teammate rebuild 150 engines" for example. What is improved, how would it help make goi a better game?
To improve what is it just needs improved communication and teamwork.

[Thomas]

I figured the 'why' had been beaten half to death. The issue being unbalanced matches being not very enjoyable to everyone involved. Higher skilled players tend to like facing players their own skill level, where lower rank players like to face people around their skill level. No one likes an easy win, and no one likes being absolutely stomped. Then you can add in lobby wait times for high ranked players to get a challenger, trying to stick with playing with friends instead of being forced to swap teams, player retention, etc, etc.


Our current system more or less forces unfavorable teams to occur. This is from the differences in experience with GoIO, as well as our desire to play with our friends. They generally do not start with the intention of going pubstomping. You start playing with your friends, maybe against another clan, play a few rounds, and then one team ends up leaving. Your team wants to play more and the enemy ends up filling with random relatively low experience players. A series of 5-0/1 matches occur. The newer players call hacks, complain about stacked teams, etc; and very often end up leaving. It's unsavory for everyone. The 'stacked' team ends up having to leave and find a new lobby, or do some switch swapping to balance out the teams. This often results in them not being able to play with their friends in a way they wanted.


If you don't believe team stacking happens, I don't believe even a pile of screenshots and videos could change your mind. I'm actually looking at one right now.

The important thing to restate is that we're not trying to vilify the high skill teamed. They've essentially achieved the GoIO dream, putting together a great crew that communicates well and gets things done. However, they did not achieve this to whomp on new players, they want a 'real' fight.


So team stacking happens, and it is a problem. Is it a big problem? It's hard to say. On some days it's tough to find an imbalanced match, on other days it seems that every other match seems heavily skewed. A lot of people never say a word about it, while sometimes players are very vocal about the conditions of the match. Which causes a response from the other team, which is not very often positive.



So why would matchmaking help?

-Balanced teams. The main objective is to create a competitive atmosphere by placing teams against each other who have 'as close as possible' skill level and chance to win. This is more likely to end up with closer, more intense matches.

-Teamwork. The system I proposed is in no way the only idea. However, it does emphasize teamwork. You have a much higher chance of winning with an organized team than an unorganized one. This will reflect itself in player ranks. Those that don't communicate and don't work together will end up getting lower scores. While those who do will be higher up. You're ability to work with others highly reflects on your skill.

-Fairness. So what about people trying to max out their rank? Remember that the stats should be invisible. They have no idea what they are, what they do, or how they're calculated. People who end up on a team they don't like and immediately leave should be penalized, the same in any other game where this happens. GoIO is very team dependent. Let's take a look at the MOBA style games. Not as highly team dependent (Nothing can compete with GoIO level of teamwork required) but still up there. Leaving a match essentially puts you in timeout, requiring your to wait a while before you can join a new match. But still allowing you to connect to the old one. Could easily do that.





The current system we have is nice, but does lead to the match imbalance problems. And the achievement system only represents the amount of achievements you've completed. I'd argue that it does not actually support teamwork, as I've seen a lot of cases to the opposite. Players running around only buffing while the ship is under fire to get their buff achievement, captains only going for rams to get ram kills, or just keeping moonshine on for 240 seconds straight while in a match. Gunners refusing to use ammo appropriate for the guns because their achievement requires different ammo. I've even seen people join as pilot when there already was one, just to get some of their rebuilding achievements.

I can't see how it takes away from fun or creativity. You still get all your loadout choices, you pick your ship, vote on the map, and still choose how you want to play. And the old 'make your own match' option should still exist for those wanting to play around with just flamethrowers or even do a tournament. The matchmaking is just for balancing things out, and randomizing them a little. You don't have to fight the same people over and over again, and you can go in solo and meet lots of different people and play styles. It essentially is just an automated lobby system, finding matches for you that you can feel confident in doing well in; instead of forcing you to enter and leave lobbies over and over again manually, looking for something that fits you.

Then it also gives player something else to do. Having clans and teams stay active longer as they vie for the top of the ranks, getting in some real significant practice against other similarly skilled teams (instead of being forced to plow through lvl 3's and such).

And finally, I am hoping that it would increase player retention. We can't seem to keep new players around long, which can be seen in the steam charts link I posted. A system change such as this might be just the safety net they need, giving them a learning curve, allowing them to improve their skills at their own pace. Not the 'sink or swim' method we have had.

[zlater75@hotmail.com]

I don't believe i said it ain't happening. i guess we go on our own assumptions and opinions. which is fine.
I assume this idea would be a coding nightmare and what some peoples motives are for joining/leaving/playing is speculative. Not every gamer is a teamwork player.
It just sounds contradictive to me. I'll leave it at that.
Appretiate your effort in answering. Good luck with it.

[Thomas]

I usually just do a 'blanket' response, trying to cover all the points from people above. Which is why my posts tend to be so long winded and repetitive, sorry about that. D;

But right now we're faced with the exact same player base. Changing how the system works will not change that. Also I like to pretend that the suggested design filters down players that don't cooperate, as they tend to have poor performance anyways (and also have a lower chance of winning). Since it's hopefully randomized, you shouldn't get paired with them as often, and will create a larger gap in your ranks. And if you really really want to avoid players like that, you just have to form your own team ahead of time. Something that's always been encouraged in GoIO. This system just makes it so that you don't -have- to premake your team for a decent chance of victory.