Version 1.3.8 Hotfix Release Notes

[Thomas]

I think the concerns brought up are valid. With all the big changes to leveling and matchmaking, it might take a few passes to get things integrated in a way that make sense to everyone.

I think the big thing mentioned was about hiding levels in the match, but showing them in the global/match chat. The first part was done because matches are not set based upon your level, but are based on your hidden rating. However, most players were assuming that it was based upon level. So going into a match with some level 10's against some level 30's seems awkwardly stacked, when it's actually fairly balanced.

I'm not as sure about the levels in the chat, but it's probably just a nice way of letting players show off their rank.


Now that there's the crew/captain instead of individual classes does not mean you have to play as an engineer if you don't want, as much as you don't have to play as a gunner. You should still be able to choose your class just fine.



And of course there's always the Custom Game option to view a version of the match list. You can still join up with friends or make your own lobby and such. We did this for the SCS as well.


Remember to keep it civil on the forums. We love the feedback, both positive and negative.

[Imagine]

I'm talking about previous monday, when the new update came out. And I tell from the experience of last week, when this patch is on. And I REALLY haven't seen a player to say "Wow, this matchmaking thing is good!"; only "Jesus, what is this crap? I can't do this, this and this. Why this is working like that? It's unlogical/uncomfortable."

I came here for last two week of lobbies, and honestly? I had nothing against manually looking for a match, it was faster, it was easy. Now most options are rather not transparent, unintuitive. I CAN see reasons behind some of the changes, but mostly they are poorly implemented. And I have to tell you, that despite being rather not giving up person, I ragequited few times because of how matchmaker put me.

Is it understood?
The fact that I'm around here for a month doesn't mean I speak mindlessly. Only grammar incorrectly.

Give me 4 hours, and I'll give you cold-headed analysis of what I consider stupid/crappy/not working. So far, I have to pass coming test at University, pardon me.

Actually my comment was referring to you talking about how no one paid attention to us when everything was "lovely", something, considering your recent joining of the game and forums, you wouldn't have much frame of reference to.


Anyways, Thomas, I think feedback is great too...

... when it's relevant and not just a bunch of nitpicking or irrational hatred.

[Schwalbe]

It is NOT balanced. I can tell you from the ACTUAL game experience. It ALWAYS comes to a MASSACRE.

I have no idea, how ship with crew 27-31-28-43 against crew of 4-1-1-7 can be BALANCED. I haven't took the screen, and that's my bad, I see.

I tried to start the custom game - nobody even popped in. I waited around, I don't know. Twenty minutes.

I won't even try to comment crew/captain thing. It's not going to happen. Really.

We tried to keep it civilised way on forum, you just never heard what old players and some newer ones were saying waiting for a game.



Edit: Imagine, yes, I KNOW what you were talking about. I just EXPLAINED to you what I mean, and you still seem not even try to understand.

[redria]

This is not the place for directed aggression

We can have this discussion peacefully. If you have a reply to a specific person, please make sure your reply is constructive and discussive (that's not a word) - asking and answering questions, not accusing. My thoughts on the matter aside, I hate to see people fighting - especially over a medium as easily misconstrued as the internet.

[Thomas]

Well right now we're using the glicko 2 rating system, as far as I'm aware. (And I could very well be wrong)

This is mostly based on win/loss against your opponents rating. However, this means that you need to play matches to start earning your rating. The more matches you play, the more accurate the matchmaking system will become.

Then of course there's the crew formation. For instance if an entire competitive team forms a crew and hops into the matchmaking, it's going to be nearly impossible for the system to create a fair match for them, since it would take another competitive team of relatively equal skill level doing the same crew form and matchmaking around the same time. So just about any match they're put into is going to be skewed heavily. However, due to this, it shouldn't affect either teams glicko 2 rating in a significant way. Trying to balance the matches while still giving players the features they want is difficult. It would be much easier to remove the crew formation and joining on friends to create a much more balanced matchmaking system, but at the same time we don't want players to lose the ability to play with their friends.

[Hoja Lateralus]

Let me put it like this, using the Western (for us - regular) logic born from Aristotle in Ancient Greece.

Thesis: Experience is important part of player capabilities during match

What do I mean:

Experience - the knowledge based on matches played and various situations that occured during plays, the knowledge of different loadouts and the practical knowledge (from "you can hit middle engine on pyra from below" to "you can hit middle engine on galleon from below") or skills that are motory/practice based (for example shooting, especially with weapons that are hard to shoot like h.flak, hwacha with heavy on mid/long distance etc.). Also situational knowledge like "I have 4 stacks on hull which has 30% of life - should I put it out or mallet it?".

Experience =/= skill per se

The indicator of experience is player level. After 1.3.8 it should be more accurate than ever before.

The Thesis must be true (1) or not-true (0).

If Thesis is True and experience is important:
-Hiding player level makes the system pointless
-Limitations to viewing player levels are also pointless
-Player level may be partially valid indicator of players' skill (therefore it should be visible and maybe considered by matchmaker)

If Thesis is False and experience is not important (or its' importance is so small that it doesn't make much difference):
-The whole institution of 'player level' is pointless and should be deleted or be only visible for the player him/herself and no one another
-If level doesn't matter there's no difference between showing it or no apart from subjective judgement of an observator
-Therefore the system should be simple. The current change is complifying the system without anything to offer.

Now let me give you a few reasons why I think the Thesis is true:
-Most low-lvl and mid-lvl engineers use fire extinguisher instead of chemical spray. Using chemical spray has of course higher skill requirements but also experience requirements.
-As I wrote before - knowledge of tactics, combos, loadouts, maps, chem routes, weapon recoils, ships makes more experienced players superior to less experienced in ANY matter.
-Knowledge of "game creed" - knowing importance of communications and finding your place on a ship also makes more experienced players perform better. Many times I heard that cooperation in this game is OP.
-Performing challenging tasks - more experienced players to gain their level had to do something special (achievements). I believe that a guy who managed to win 7 Anglean Riders without dying is more reliable (at least) than the one who didn't (yet?).

From my experienced in 1.3.7 the level of player was pretty much valid indicator of his/her skills.
I strongly believe that the leveling system from 1.3.8 should work just the same as the one from 1.3.7. No "there you can see it, there you can't" or other siliness.
I may not be right but this is my case, and I will probably not change my mind about this.



Another thing: Schwalbe is actually a friend of mine and before he got GOIO I used to tell him about community and problems.

Geo made a very good point - when I see the levels I can enter the lobby and decide whether I want to stay here or not. You may say that matchmaking works and I shouldn't be bothered by levels - well from my experience with matchmaking it doesn't work (as intented). Most of the lobbies I end up to ends up with scores like 5:0, 5:1 etc. Also as someone said in other thread - games may be more or less balanced but every player (even Schwalbe) knows what a pain in the ass it is to fly with someone with lvl 1 or sth like that. People may win games like that and be really frustrated about the game. And I truly DON'T believe that ANY lvl1 may be as good as lvl20-ish. I'm not buying that. As Schwalbe said, I too rarely meet people who are actually happy about matchmaking.

About the custom game list - I actually have like 50-ish friends on my friend list. I only add people who I managed to play a few games with on the same crew and I'm happy to be and play with them. Saying "Yeah, you can have your old server list, just add 200 people to friends" is no solution at all and barely an argument. It's like saying "Well you can dig out a tunnel with a teaspoon, you just need 30 years to do it". Also - if custom game list works just the same as server list (but in a LIMITED way) then why not add just a server list as an optional lobby creation/searching choice than matchmaking?

I think the hiding levels thing is another example of Muse catering to greenhorns rather than veterans. Because it protects greenhorns from their low status (for a short amount of time) but also "protects" them from any advices more experienced players may give. It protects noobs from veterans, but veterans can't protect themselves from noobs APART from password games. And many experienced players say that pub matches are terrible and if you want a good game you have to go as far away as you can from pubs. And it's true. Muse doesn't protect its' veterans and veterans will be lost one after another.

[Velvet]

I think the argument against hiding levels is a valid one and it is a discussion that should happen. But this torrent of hostility is damaging the cause against these patch changes. Keep things civil and maybe some good can come out of it.

[Keyvias]

Hey Guys,

So let me talk on hiding the levels and let me be frank.

They're wrong and they make players wrong.

The number one weakness of our matchmaking system, the thing that hurts balance the most, is players leaving. Levels also match matches appear unfair that aren't. Being 45 doesn't make you good at the game, being 37, 22, or 11 doesn't make you good at the game, but since they were the only information people had so they used them.  When a player leaves a match it forces the matchmaker to scramble and grab whatever player it can to fill the slot oftentimes at the expense of balance.
I am sure many of you know that rating and level do not correlate and many mid range players are much higher rated than their high level counter parts, but many players don't know this. They take that number and look at it as gospel for the balance of the match, which it very much is not.

Yes we will be making leaderboards with the correct information and they are on their way. In the meantime though, we don't want bad information to spoil matches.
We talked about removing it all together except for some key points:
-Players like showing off level
-It is still good to see if you have a low level on your ship


As for greenhorn vs vet:
Greenhorns don't leave matches. Stats-wise it's the higher level player that will ditch the match more often than not. Their level isn't hidden from their crew though so even if they're a level the captain is not comfortable with he will know and can plan accordingly.


As a general perspective:
1.3.7 and before we got emails weekly on imbalanced matches, second pilots joining mid game, games taking 20 minutes to start, and tens of other issues that we tried to tackle here.
There are three pillars to any match system flexibility, speed, and balance.
Match list is max flexibility with 0 balance and 0 speed.
We tried to make a matchmaker and keeping many of the legacy elements from the match list like friend join, no penalty leaving, rematch, and custom games tried to give the quickest, most balanced, experience while retaining as much flexibility as possible.
We did this so vets would get faster better games, we did this so newbies would get faster better games.

[GeoRmr]

Well, you have that nice little disclaimer at the bottom of every lobby.
So can we display the levels again please?

People that use levels to judge other players are still using them as bias - the only difference now is they have to click on everyones name. Or - just wait for them to type? What's the logic behind adding the level to the name in text chat?

So far as a vet I've not experienced any "better" games due to matchmaking, nor any that started particularly faster. I did experience an (enjoyable) 28 minute long queue waiting for the matchmaker to sort me today. Its so much better sitting in silence alone than when I was able to talk to other players waiting for a lobby to start...

[GeoRmr]

Sorry, just another question:

Why did you bother putting in so much time and effort redesigning the progression system only to disown it as "wrong" and consider removing it completely?

_{I'm still of the firm opinion that a glicko2 rating is irrelevant when it comes to this team based game and that the systems mechanical definition of a "better" player based on win/loss is probably as far from an accurate representation of skill as the progression system.}

[Wundsalz]

Yes we will be making leaderboards with the correct information and they are on their way. In the meantime though, we don't want bad information to spoil matches.
We talked about removing it all together except for some key points:
-Players like showing off level
-It is still good to see if you have a low level on your ship

Matches played might be an interesting alternative as well. Level - and more so matches played are an indicator for experience (note the difference to skill) after all. It helps to evaluate whether it might be worth to show someone the ropes - and which ones (basics like "this is a spanner, whack red stuff with it" or less known repair tricks like "Did you know you can repair the Galleons main engine from below?").

As for greenhorn vs vet:
Greenhorns don't leave matches. Stats-wise it's the higher level player that will ditch the match more often than not. Their level isn't hidden from their crew though so even if they're a level the captain is not comfortable with he will know and can plan accordingly.

do you refer to leaves during the lobby phase or during the airship-minigame phase? I'd really be surprised by the latter, because vets tend to have a rather high match completion rates. The former wouldn't surprise me at all, as I'm picky with which lobbies to play myself and until you stop putting me into matches as 2nd or 3rd gunner or try to balance a horribly stacked lobby with me that won't change.

We tried to make a matchmaker and keeping many of the legacy elements from the match list like friend join, no penalty leaving, rematch

Frankly I think you've been a bit to clingy on some legacy elements which inhibit match-making.

[we] tried to give the quickest, most balanced, experience while retaining as much flexibility as possible.

Flexibility (stuff like friend-lobby-joins) and quickness (match-making giving elapsed wait time a huge weight in the algorithm) influence balance negatively and vice versa. Personally I'd like to see balance prioritized more at the cost of the other two goals. I'm sure opinions differ here and especially on the flexibility part I don't think it's possible to shift the focus more to balance without pissing off those who prefer flexibility. However regarding quickness I think you can cater both parties: Those who like to hop into matches asap and those who prefer waiting a couple of matches to play with people on par with oneself against people on par with oneself. You could allow the user to set a preference in the options (e.g. a thresholds for maximum glicko-rating standard deviation in a match and/or allow the user to alter a wait-time coefficient in the algorithm).

[Hoja Lateralus]

_{I'm still of the firm opinion that a glicko2 rating is irrelevant when it comes to this team based game and that the systems mechanical definition of a "better" player based on win/loss is probably as far from an accurate representation of skill as the progression system.}

I said it multiple times. I can be best engineer in the world but with captain lvl3 I won't do much.

As I stated above level measures experience and although experience =/= skill per se it's still really important. And no, I won't play with two lvl1's in my crew. Nuh-uh, not gonna happen.

As for greenhorn vs vet:
Greenhorns don't leave matches. Stats-wise it's the higher level player that will ditch the match more often than not. Their level isn't hidden from their crew though so even if they're a level the captain is not comfortable with he will know and can plan accordingly.

They do, but during game. And as I said - I won't be playing with lvl1's because it's frustrating. I don't mind the mediocre players around lvl20 (if they listen to advice) but being a nanny over second engineer and having your gunner loading lochnagar to gatlings is no fun AT ALL, and therefore when I see players with that low level I prefer to leave the lobby.

Match list is max flexibility with 0 balance and 0 speed.

I disagree. Lobbies may be unbalanced at first but after time they go to some average, either weaker players leave and lobby goes stronger or the other way. I've had very balanced and very quick games in 1.3.7 and I had very unbalanced and slow to find games in 1.3.8. From my perspective it's no evolution here. Also since 1.3.8 I have been in 3v3 lobby... once. Literally once although I always check the 3v3 thingy. I even made the thread about game modes and sizes that will be forever forgotten...

Some compromise may be two separate system. The custom games as in 1.3.7 and the matchmaker with all the restrictions you need to make games balanced. I think it's the best solution (apart from trashing matchmaking entirely, but I assume this is not agreeable by Muse )

[Keyvias]

@Geo
It's wrong in the form of balance or skill.

Is it good for showing how much you've played? You bet.  Is it a good way to reward players with items, definitely.


As far as glicko2, it's pretty spot on for how a game will go. For the past 6 months we've been able to predict winners with frightful regularity based solely on glicko2 score.  We've put this system in-game behind the scenes keeping track of you to test it long before we made it a part of the game.

If you're using crew form or friend join for a majority of your matches it's possible you're not seeing the most balanced games though they will be unbalanced towards you if you avoid the matchmaker (and you're high glicko score), but overall the matches are more balanced, meaning each side has a better chance of victory.

@Wundsalz
You can still see the levels of your crew on your ship.  Just in case you get a newbie we didn't want to leave you in the dark on it.
Yeah for the leaving on vets, I was talking about lobbies. As far as second gunner that was in the match list as well, you'll need to ask people to change or use the recommended loadout captains tool on them.
As far as the legacy elements, let us know which ones you don't like or don't need and let us know. We're happy to free up matchmaker to make faster more balanced games.
I agree on balance being priority, but a lot of feedback both from in-game and in-testing pushed towards speed and flexibility.  We're still investigating this though and doing some behind the scenes changes to the algorithm to be a bit more aggressive on balance.

[Keyvias]

@ Mr.Disaster
Let's say you're in the top 2% of the glicko2 score.  Your ability to win consistently in many situations makes you a high rated player.  Let's say you matchmake and there are 20 people in the queue and all the other games are either full or in-progress. In this situation you'll be match with probably the lesser players on your side to make the match as close to fair as possible. Does this mean you'll lose more than if you could join any lobby and find one with a more favorable situation? It does.
You can't have balance and be a very good player and not be match with lower allies (when you don't crew form or friend join.) Mathematically, it just doesn't work.

You can disagree on balance, but we've been running the numbers for months, there was a whole bunch of terrible balance pretty consistently.

[Wundsalz]

I'm still of the firm opinion that a glicko2 rating is irrelevant when it comes to this team based game and that the systems mechanical definition of a "better" player based on win/loss is probably as far from an accurate representation of skill as the progression system.

I disagree with this. Considering the complexity of GoIO I think treating the player as a blackbox is the way to go. Glicko2 is a well established standard which yields good results for other games so I don't see why it shouldn't work for us. Sure- especially with a low match-count the rating will lack accuracy and precision, but still, even in this case, it will yield a rough estimation which is better than anything else we've got so far.

As far as the legacy elements, let us know which ones you don't like or don't need and let us know.

Features that hurt balance
Rematch
Crew Form
Friend Join
Ship/slot swapping
Spectator swapping
Lobby leaving without penalty
Custom matches
Server Location
Speed of matchmaker

If there are any things here that you don't think are vital definitely let me know.

Rematch - I don't need this
Crew Form - I want this. Let me play with friends!
Friend Join - crew form should be sufficient
Ship/slot swapping - no, this blatantly contradicts the goal of matchmaking. Get rid of obsolete features please! I'd rather like to have one working system than 2 which inhibit each other --edit-- Intra-team swaps should be fine though
Spectator swapping - what's spectator swapping?
Lobby leaving without penalty - If matchmaking would be able to reliably place me into balanced matches with a low skill deviation, I wouldn't mind a penalty for leaving a lobby. However as long as you place me into ships as a second gunner and/or try balance a rookies vs. mediocre players matches with me, I'd prefer to have the option to say no to your systems silly suggestions.
Custom matches - those are necessary for scrims, cws and other events. They should not be integrated into the match making system.
Server Location - I only want to play on US and EU servers.
Speed of matchmaker - I don't mind waiting a minute or two... or 5-10 if that ensures I'll be fielded with good players against good players.

In order to make match-making work, the match making system needs to be in charge of matching players for matches.
Currently there are a lot of elements which completely undermine match-making. This corrodes the system to a degree that it's not able to fulfill its purpose - personally I don't see a major difference between the current match-making and the quick-play button we've had a while back.
If we want to make matchmaking work, the system needs to be restrictive - just take a look around what other games with matchmaking do! Many mobas have got a way larger player base and only need to match 10 players which are sort of on par, rather than 16 which are needed for GoIO. Still they restrict the size or pre-made parties and regard them as THE major problem which prevents balanced matches (see Smite matchmaking).

I doubt a proper matchmaking is possible unless the players "flexibility" is restricted. That being said I'm not comfortable with relying on the matchmaking system entirely until some infancy problems are resolved - multiple gunner matching, and the insane skill deviation (lvl<10+lvl45 captain vs. 2 lvl 30ish captains[Remark: As the debate poped up here: read this as "shitty glicko2-rating + good rating vs. 2 mediocre ratings" I'm talking about skill and just used levels here because, unlike the glicko2 rating, it's accessible ingame-information]) in particular.