Author Topic: Goals and Ramifications of Matchmaking  (Read 66017 times)

Offline Thomas

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Re: Goals and Ramifications of Matchmaking
« Reply #90 on: February 25, 2014, 05:46:27 pm »
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.



Offline Keyvias

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Re: Goals and Ramifications of Matchmaking
« Reply #91 on: February 25, 2014, 06:04:08 pm »
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.

Offline Tropo

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Re: Goals and Ramifications of Matchmaking
« Reply #92 on: February 25, 2014, 06:21:46 pm »
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


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

Offline Captain Smollett

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Re: Goals and Ramifications of Matchmaking
« Reply #93 on: February 25, 2014, 07:07:16 pm »
Something like Tropos idea could be an incredible time saver.

Offline Byron Cavendish

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Re: Goals and Ramifications of Matchmaking
« Reply #94 on: February 25, 2014, 07:54:06 pm »
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.

Offline Queso

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Re: Goals and Ramifications of Matchmaking
« Reply #95 on: February 25, 2014, 09:50:31 pm »
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.

Offline Thomas

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Re: Goals and Ramifications of Matchmaking
« Reply #96 on: February 25, 2014, 09:59:29 pm »
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.

Offline Omniraptor

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Re: Goals and Ramifications of Matchmaking
« Reply #97 on: February 25, 2014, 10:20:26 pm »
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.

Offline Tropo

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Re: Goals and Ramifications of Matchmaking
« Reply #98 on: February 26, 2014, 01:32:58 am »
muse in the dev app oready have a cool ui for my idea above


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

Offline Thomas

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Re: Goals and Ramifications of Matchmaking
« Reply #99 on: February 26, 2014, 02:07:03 am »
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.



-------

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.

Offline Squidslinger Gilder

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Re: Goals and Ramifications of Matchmaking
« Reply #100 on: April 11, 2014, 04:33:36 pm »
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.

Offline Schwerbelastung

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Re: Goals and Ramifications of Matchmaking
« Reply #101 on: April 11, 2014, 05:01:26 pm »
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.

Offline Squidslinger Gilder

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Re: Goals and Ramifications of Matchmaking
« Reply #102 on: April 21, 2014, 06:11:29 am »
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.

Offline Geze

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Re: Goals and Ramifications of Matchmaking
« Reply #103 on: July 18, 2014, 04:10:45 am »
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.

Offline Dementio

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Re: Goals and Ramifications of Matchmaking
« Reply #104 on: July 18, 2014, 05:23:53 am »
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.
« Last Edit: July 18, 2014, 05:28:04 am by Dementio »