So... about that matchmaking thing. (concerns and an alternative suggestion)

[obliviondoll]

I've gone digging after a very lobby-themed discussion between myself and BlackenedSkies in his thread about crew joining during a match.

Imagine has, of course, emphasised the "the problem will magically disappear when we have matchmaking" argument.

That argument is, of course, pure fallacy. This game NEEDS lobbies - even if they're time-limited. You can't NOT have them. Matchmaking will make sure the lobby fills up fast, but it WON'T solve many of the underlying problems that cause the "Lobbies of Icarus" problem.

So, I decided to find out what I can about this fabled "matchmaking" that's going to be coming to the game sometime. I looked everywhere, and there's precious little in the way of solid information except that it will match lone players into crews with one pilot, one gunner and two engineers. As the standard "works for everything" crew, that's fine. But there's still a whole of unanswered. That said, lets work with what we've got, and try to avoid any unreasonable assumptions. Even some of the reasonable ones like the game trying to balance crews and/or teams based on level.

People will be tossed together into a lobby. Great. You get 16 people all showing up at once. You queued as an engineer, so you're locked into the role. What if your captain decides on the fly that maybe an extra gunner would work better? He can ask, but will you be able to swap if you agree to the suggestion? What if you end up getting lucky joining a crew for someone you met the other day, and you decide you want to reshuffle things, but you can't because you've been matchmade into your current positions? Does the system have any allowance for players to trade places? Or for crew members to switch roles (maybe with captain approval)?

So you get the lobby full, and maybe there's a time limit before the game starts. What if a captain abandons the lobby before the match starts? Maybe they got disconnected. Maybe they got an urgent phonecall and had to rush off. Maybe the house is on fire. Do you get the first captain to come available? What if there is none? And what if you want to be captain of your flamethrower Squid, but none of the gunners you get thrown in with want to equip your suggestion of Lochnagar, Greased Rounds and Heavy Clip? You're the captain, so you're in charge? Oh, you can LEAVE, sure. But what happens to that no-longer-filled lobby? Will the match start with a missing captain? Will there be pilot AI by this point? Will we have a random non-pilot given a temporary promotion to captain? Or will the lobby turn into a "waiting for captain" lobby like the ones we currently see all the time anyway? If the latter, what's the difference?

So, other than matchmaking, which is a massive and complex undertaking with plenty of potential flaws and only dubious benefits, what can be done?

Why not let CREW ready up, instead of putting it all on the captains. A captain can ready up, and the ship is sorted. Fine. But why not allow a crew to ready their ship up when the captain is stalling? "No, you have to load the Gatlings with Burst, or I'm not readying up" - fine then, do the rest of you guys on the ship agree that the Engineer who will be manning Gatling Guns to bring Lesmok? Ready up.

Quite often, you get a 2 vs. 2 match where everyone in the lobby is ready and wants to play, except for 2 captains who are complaining at their crew. The crew just want the match to start too. If they could start the timer themselves, they would. Sure, maybe the captain would ditch them, and they'd end up waiting anyway for a new captain. But maybe one of the crew could take over. Or maybe more captains will start sucking it up and putting up with those silent players you sometimes get. Maybe more people would be willing to just get on with it and play instead of demanding that everything be perfect because "it's MY ship, not yours" - your ship is your crew's ship as well.

[Imagine]

The problem being addressed was gunners/pilots joining mid-game. That will not happen through matchmaking system.

I hesitate to talk about any of the specifics as dev app talks are left to those in the dev app group, all I can really say that about 99% of the questions you've put forth here won't be an issue. Not to say it's a perfect system, yet, but a lot of the questions being asked here is being dealt with.

[Milevan Faent]

If you want to get info on this kind of stuff, join the Dev App and be a tester. We can actually share this info there, but it's not really allowed out here, mainly because it IS still a work in progress. That said, yeah, basically all of your concerns aren't a problem with the matchmaker. While some people seem to have a problem simply because it's a matchmaker, I love what I've seen, and eagerly await it's implementation, as it solves pretty much every problem I have with the game.

[obliviondoll]

The problem being addressed was gunners/pilots joining mid-game. That will not happen through matchmaking system.

That's cool. Good to know. But it also leaves questions unanswered. Will you be able to invite friends if you get a troll crew that fill out your ship then leave after the match starts? Or are you stuck with AI? And will the AI somehow be scaled for the skill rating of the match, randomised, or just standardised AI the game always uses?

Also, this thread ISN'T about that same topic anyway. It's more related to the tangential discussion of a captain's right (or lack thereof) to define their crew's loadouts. I was more involved and interested in that aspect of the discussion than the core focus of the other thread. And it was that aspect of the discussion which prompted me to make this thread on a topic more related to THAT point of discussion than the initial topic of the other thread.

I hesitate to talk about any of the specifics as dev app talks are left to those in the dev app group,

I totally understand that. It would be great to have more information, but while we don't have solid answers, guesses and questions are all the players without dev app access can manage.

all I can really say that about 99% of the questions you've put forth here won't be an issue. Not to say it's a perfect system, yet, but a lot of the questions being asked here is being dealt with.

Considering that the method by which the questions are "dealt with" brings about its own series of potential problems along with the benefits, I find that very hard to believe. It also doesn't acknowledge my suggestion for an alternative method to try and improve the "Lobbies of Icarus" situation.

For every possible solution I can see to each question I'm posing, I can see ways in which that solution will fail to have the desired effect. Fixing "Lobbies of Icarus" with matchmaking will work to a certain point, but will either introduce other problems, or will occasionally stall games more than the current system. I've tried to think of a way that allowing crew to ready up would hurt the situation instead of helping, and I simply CAN'T THINK OF ONE. If the ship having a leadership crisis is full, then either the match starts faster and the captain deals with it, or the captain quits sooner than they would using the current system and that speeds up the process of finding a new captain. If it isn't full, the situation is no worse than where we are now.

Adding the feature I'm proposing wouldn't have to be mutually exclusive with matchmaking either. For Guns of Icarus to work in a reasonable manner, there would still need to be a lobby. Sure, you get 2 engineers and a gunner, but the loadouts each player will want to take are going to vary significantly from one ship to the next, depending on the ship itself, the captain, and the weapons loadout. Each of those can (and often will) require different loadouts.

There is no viable way to have a matchmaking system that works for this game AND removes the entire lobby system. As far as I'm concerned, it can't work. There NEEDS to be that window for planning - even moreso with randoms than with premade teams.

So there has to be a lobby, and that means there has to be an option for captains to ready up. There will almost certainly be an option for captains to ready up and start the match. Even if there's a 3 - 5 minute timer for preparation, people will want to be able to cut the timer short. And that means that allowing crews to ready up and push their captain to make a decision that much faster will still be something worth considering.

[Milevan Faent]

Okay, I don't really have time to read through your full posts right now (and didn't when I first responded tbh, though I did glance through them), but something I think I can sort of get away with saying: the new matchmaking system still has "lobbies", in that you will still get into a room just like we do now. You can still use pretty much every feature that comes with that as well, even bringing friends in at the start. Matchmaking itself is literally just helping rooms fill up. Then there is a timer to get that match started. About the only real change to how the game is played will probably be matches start in less than 5 minutes at the longest (and I don't think it can even get that long), and both teams SHOULD be roughly equal in skill level. Just about every feature we have in the game right now that you can name is still working just fine. I haven't seen a single feature someone has mentioned that ISN'T already covered.

[Wundsalz]

Why not let CREW ready up, instead of putting it all on the captains. A captain can ready up, and the ship is sorted. Fine. But why not allow a crew to ready their ship up when the captain is stalling? "No, you have to load the Gatlings with Burst, or I'm not readying up" - fine then, do the rest of you guys on the ship agree that the Engineer who will be manning Gatling Guns to bring Lesmok? Ready up.

Nope, it's a well established behavior policy that captains have got the final say about what the crew brings and at least in matches with more experienced players it is usually considered rude if a crew member insists on bringing certain equipment against their captains will. Put aside the widespread opinion that it's the captains job to organize the crew throughout the match (starting in the lobby), captains also have to bother the most about the strategical and tactical aspects of the game. Here is an example why it is a good thing to let the captain have the last say about the crews loadout: What ammunition is useful for a Lumberjack on a goldfish is greatly affected by the captains positioning. If he wants to stay back and support an ally ship which delivers the killing blows, the gunner should be fine with lesmok, burst and greased. If he wants to play more aggressive and mixes in occasional rams, lochnagar can come in very handy to pop the balloon/strip the hull right before impact where all other ammunition times already lack arming distance, so greased lochnagar + either burst or lesmok is the way to go. Whether to bring lesmok or burst rounds again depends on the captains positioning. If he flies brawly the gunner doesn't need lesmok, as he will be able to land shots with burst rounds anyway. However if he plans to stay back, at least once in a while, lesmok rounds are likely the better pick. As the gunner can't influence the positioning of the ship, he needs to rely on his captains instructions.

[Piemanlives]

More importantly it is the captain's vessel. A captain knows how they're going to fly the ship, and if the crew brings something that won't be used or is heavily situational it brings down the effectiveness of the vessel as a whole. This is more or less a given fact, because the gunner isn't flying, the engineer isn't flying, the Captain, who should have a good idea about how they want to approach a situation is. It's like looking at a abstract piece of art, you may not get it, but the artist certainly does.

[obliviondoll]

in matches with more experienced players it is usually considered rude if a crew member insists on bringing certain equipment against their captains will.

In matches with more experienced players, the crew won't ready up without the captain's agreement. In MOST matches with more experienced players, at least some of the crew will already know each other and the captain anyway. This is one of those points where people will be discussing things. If the captain is GOOD, then it's possible for an intelligent disagreement from a crew member to result in the crew member's alternative proposal to be accepted. If the crew member is an idiot and trying to get the other crew on-side, they won't stand for it and the captain won't be pressured by the person who doesn't know what they're talking about. This won't have an impact on experienced player lobbies. All it takes is ONE crew member to agree with the captain and the ship won't be forced to ready up early.

In lower-end matches, where most people don't really know what they're doing, you'll occasionally get an idiot captain saying "everyone bring burst rounds" on a gatling squid, or something similar. If the crew unanimously agree that's a stupid idea (because it is), they can ready up, and the captain has to deal with it. If you have a Goldfish with Hwacha, Gat, Flamer, and the captain says for everyone to bring lochnagar, most crew on most ships will point out that this plan is silly, and be able to explain why. Even novice players can usually tell you that it's a bad idea by the time they finish reading the ammo description.

Put aside the widespread opinion that it's the captains job to organize the crew throughout the match (starting in the lobby), captains also have to bother the most about the strategical and tactical aspects of the game. Here is an example why it is a good thing to let the captain have the last say about the crews loadout: What ammunition is useful for a Lumberjack on a goldfish is greatly affected by the captains positioning. If he wants to stay back and support an ally ship which delivers the killing blows, the gunner should be fine with lesmok, burst and greased. If he wants to play more aggressive and mixes in occasional rams, lochnagar can come in very handy to pop the balloon/strip the hull right before impact where all other ammunition times already lack arming distance, so greased lochnagar + either burst or lesmok is the way to go. Whether to bring lesmok or burst rounds again depends on the captains positioning. If he flies brawly the gunner doesn't need lesmok, as he will be able to land shots with burst rounds anyway. However if he plans to stay back, at least once in a while, lesmok rounds are likely the better pick. As the gunner can't influence the positioning of the ship, he needs to rely on his captains instructions.

I get that there are plenty of potential situations where the captain has good reason to want certain ammo types, or certain repair tools, on their crew. That's cool. That's why it should take THE ENTIRE REST OF THE CREW TO READY UP to override the captain. If the captain is competent at explaining his plan and reasons, and the explanation is at least vaguely reasonable, the dissenting crew member will have a tough time trying to get their crewmates to ready up and go against the captain.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Matchmaking has been a...well...frightfully promising venture. I guess that is the best way to put it. So many ways it can go wrong and then so many ways it can go right. As part of the dev app group, trust me Muse is listening and we are making sure bases are covered. If they weren't, matchmaking probably would have been implemented already. I share and forward concerns from people on this issue. They are trying to take them all into account and make it better. If they do something game breaking then you can be sure Muse will undo it quickly.

As far as arguing with experienced captains goes...most of the time I've ran into it, the person arguing didn't understand what I was going to be doing with the build. The ones that get very heated and confrontational, I tell to leave or join another ship. The ones who listen and do it, end up having some of the most fun they've ever had. Nothing can be done to really fix this other than running with friends.

[obliviondoll]

If they do something game breaking then you can be sure Muse will undo it quickly.

While not as experienced with the company and the game as some, I've already got to the point of expecting this. Muse are doing a very good job of making sure things are handled right on the development side of things.

As far as arguing with experienced captains goes...most of the time I've ran into it, the person arguing didn't understand what I was going to be doing with the build. The ones that get very heated and confrontational, I tell to leave or join another ship. The ones who listen and do it, end up having some of the most fun they've ever had. Nothing can be done to really fix this other than running with friends.

Most of the time when I've seen experienced captains, they've been quite willing and able to explain WHY they want the loadout they suggested if someone is questioning or disagreeing with them. When that happens, most competent crew members will take the advice given.

If a captain tells me to do something that I don't understand, and I don't understand because I'm not experienced with their ship's loadout, I'll do what I'm told, but I'll also ask why so I know for the future. If they ask me to do something I don't understand because I think my loadout is better for the ship, I'll explain why I have the loadout I do, and I'll expect a reason why the captain wants me to change before I do. Even if the reason basically boils down to "because lol", I'll probably go along with it.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Yeah they get explanations but you still get some that are pretty confrontational about it. I don't even bother explaining to those ones. They tend to insult the build or use a few colorful terms for it. Which then ends in me telling them to leave. I especially love when they join another vessel and then get their butts handed to them by the build they raged about. Course they usually rage quit halfway, which I sometimes make certain of.

[obliviondoll]

Yeah they get explanations but you still get some that are pretty confrontational about it. I don't even bother explaining to those ones. They tend to insult the build or use a few colorful terms for it. Which then ends in me telling them to leave. I especially love when they join another vessel and then get their butts handed to them by the build they raged about. Course they usually rage quit halfway, which I sometimes make certain of.

When I get someone confrontational, I start out with explanations and a calm voice, and progress through several stages of aggression approaching the level of confrontation they're using, then turn passive aggressive, let them do what they want, and point out every moment where their build fails us and mine would have done better.

"Oh look, we're at long range. You're going to be missing with 90% of your Hwacha shots, because YOU DIDN'T BRING THE HEAVY CLIP I ASKED FOR. How awkward..."

"You know, all those fires would be WAAAY easier to manage if BOTH our Engineers had listened to me and brought firefighting equipment. At least we have ONE person who can put them out."

"When our ship has 4 Hwachas on board, it's really a shame our Gunner didn't bring Burst Ammo. It would pair REALLY nicely with that quad-Gatling Junker alongside us."

So far, the only crew members I've had who have received this treatment and stuck around have been players who decided to discuss their loadout with me in the lobby before our next match. It seems to me like my approach works.

That said, it has been nice when I've seen a player like that switch crews then get slaughtered when I get a more communicative crew (even if they don't follow my advice and provide a good alternative).

[shaelyn]

If you want to get info on this kind of stuff, join the Dev App and be a tester.

I know this thread has sort of changed course...

but I can't get behind this enough for you and BlackenedSkies, oblivion.  if you have some concerns, test it out, then bring them up to Muse directly if they're still a concern - and bring up any new concerns you guys have.  they need that player perspective from people who have tried it.

I tested this yesterday and my whole opinion of the matchmaking system did a complete 180.  seriously.  they need to know how you feel about it after you test it.