Problems with matchmaking

[Schwalbe]

Bad idea. It would make the whole system much more complicated and not optimised, therefore - hella much slower.

[Richard LeMoon]

As opposed to now? I don't think you know anything about dynamic sorting systems, sir.

[Schwalbe]

...yes, I know sorta (pun intended) about that. ^^

[sparklerfish]

The largest issue with MM (other than it does not work) is that you are out of the pool once you are in a lobby. If the matchmaker included EVERYONE in the pool, except for those in global lobby and in a match, it would be able to recommend better lobbies. If it did, you would get a popup like:

"We have detected a lobby better balanced for your skills. Would you like to join?"  [Yes/No]

It would then show you what your position in the new lobby would be without actually putting you there, and ask if you want to stay or go back.

Problem of diluted highly-skilled players in not fun matches solved.

This would be nice.  With a match list you could hop around until you found a lobby with good population of higher-levels which would generally stick together.  Since we don't have that luxury now, it's been slow getting a good group into a lobby, and seems to only be achieved with us crew-forming and friend-joining since the matchmaker seems to have no effing clue how to match us up appropriately.  I hope for the love of god they don't take those options away from us.

I'd even be fine being dropped into spectate in a full/running match that the matchmaker thinks I'd be a better fit in based on the players actually being around my skill bracket.  It's what I do manually anyhow waiting for a slot to open up.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

MM is a nightmare for setting up matches for events.

You have to get everyone to add one person to join on then get them to join on them. When setting up multiple matches, you have to have multiple people. So your bumbling screen names + passwords and hoping people don't have trouble navigating the menus. Its the epitome of...before just one or two steps to make it happen...now, 4-5 steps. Adding to that all the problems that potentially crop up on top of that.

[Richard LeMoon]

Agree. Before the server died last night, we were wondering how the hell we were going to set op the 3v3 VIP thing with 800 players (99.9% of them not knowing what our VIP thing is) with only a little time to explain the rules.

[HamsterIV]

I can't say for certain that this is how the match making system works, but I suspect it adds the ranking of all players on a ship and tries to make all ships in a lobby equal in that same. Vets like me get put with level 1's  so that the ship's total ranking is about equal to the other ships in the area. This system works for games like Counterstrike but is fundamentally flawed for a game like Guns of Icarus.

In counterstrike one expert player can carry a team to victory by virtue of pure skill. In Guns of Icarus one person's skill can not carry a team to victory. An expert captain with a crappy crew won't be able to do much nor will an expert engineer/gunner be able to carry a novice captain to victory.  Where as a competent pilot and one competent crew member will be able to accomplish far more.

Thus I have a suggestion for revising the match making system, and it is called multiplication. To determine the rank of a  ship multiply the captain's rank by the average rank of the crew.  This will properly weight the captain's importance while also taking into account that he can't function without a responsive crew. It will also put the vets who are getting sick and tired of being match with all novices all the time onto ships that are slightly more functional.

[SaintR.L.]

Personally I feel like much of the problem is from trying to retain some features from what the lobbies used to be like while at the same time moving ahead with matchmaking. Some features just don't work together. On its own a change could be an improvement but in conjuction with another change it seems to cause more problems than fix.

In my opinion, if players could set options like whether a lobby should be timed or not, whether a match will be counted towards matchmaking mmr and not be available to the matchmaking queue, and have access to (and see) all lobby rooms which does not accept players from the matchmaking queue then there would be more freedom for players to set map options in general.  With improved flexibility and options players could be less angrier at the rigid matchmaking system and choose to go a non-matchmaking room instead. An experienced player could invite a group of new players to a room that is not part of matchmaking to teach without having to worry about timers, mmr, and problems with matchmaking itself.

Changes are good on paper but the way it has been first implemented is causing many other, perhaps unintended, issues.

[Dutch Vanya]

Nothing has really changed in my guns of icarus experience. I just avoid the matchmaking like i avoided quickjoin. And calmly deal with the people that do use it.

[GeoRmr]

Nothing has really changed in my guns of icarus experience. I just avoid the matchmaking like i avoided quickjoin. And calmly deal with the people that do use it.

Haha this is pretty much where I stand - I'm just taking some enjoyment poking fun at its failures which I predicted long in advance ^^

[Richard LeMoon]

If I am looking for a fun match, I join on friends. If I am looking for funny screenshots, I use matchmaking.

[shaelyn]

MM is a nightmare for setting up matches for events.

You have to get everyone to add one person to join on then get them to join on them. When setting up multiple matches, you have to have multiple people. So your bumbling screen names + passwords and hoping people don't have trouble navigating the menus. Its the epitome of...before just one or two steps to make it happen...now, 4-5 steps. Adding to that all the problems that potentially crop up on top of that.

yeah it'd be really nice if crew form had a [custom match] option, so the leader of the crew form can take the whole crew into a match they create or one of their friend's matches/a tourney match - if pw protected, the pw goes through for all crew form.
and I also think one crew form should be able to join into another crew form and combine.

[KitKatKitty]

Do you really think we have enough players to split the matchmaking pool? We barely have enough to run it as is - during peak time after a sale...

I saw a post by Keyvais In the guns steam group: http://steamcommunity.com/app/209080/discussions/0/613940477936300679/?tscn=1415038511

Hey Cat Mage,

What level are you in-game?

Right now we're seeing at lower levels the flamethrower is overpowered and at higher levels it's a bit weak. We're about to have a hotfix go up to split the high and low levels a bit more so hopefully you should see quite a few less.

Just let me know though.
Thanks!

I was/am one that thinks that splitting the pool will help with the stacked lobbies...pretty sure it will...but Geo raises a very good point. Once the new player surge leaves after the sale will we have enough players to have split pools? Also, another question that came to mind was will Veterans still be able to be in low level lobbies for reasons of teaching? This is such a hard problem to have the right fix for.

[Hoja Lateralus]

Also, another question that came to mind was will Veterans still be able to be in low level lobbies for reasons of teaching? This is such a hard problem to have the right fix for.

We have Teacher and CA/mod status for that, I think.

[KitKatKitty]

yeah it'd be really nice if crew form had a [custom match] option, so the leader of the crew form can take the whole crew into a match they create or one of their friend's matches/a tourney match - if pw protected, the pw goes through for all crew form.
and I also think one crew form should be able to join into another crew form and combine.

That would be a nice feature

We have Teacher and CA/mod status for that, I think.

Yes there is (which I keep forgetting to ask for the teacher one), BUT that means every high level player that just wants to help out random low levels would have to apply for one of those status. I guess not a huge problem but it is much easier to teach 1 low level on a ship with 3 other players knowing what they are doing opposed to 3 low levels with 1 high level teaching. AND LOBBIES ARE NOT LONG ENOUGH TO TEACH IN!!!!!!