Author Topic: New Lobby System Idea  (Read 12434 times)

Offline HamsterIV

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New Lobby System Idea
« on: May 16, 2018, 04:46:29 pm »
This talk about stacked lobbies is old, but I am going to play arm chair designer and come up with a completely different lobby/match making system that hopefully reduces game wait times, spreads the pain of fighting stacked ships, rewards high level play, and dynamically resizes to run 3v3 and 4v4 games depending on player population.

The core idea behind this system is there is no rematch option and the performance of a ship as a whole is the determining factor for its placement in match making. Instead of joining a match lobby players will join a 4 person ship lobby. The ship lobby will have a rank assigned to it based on its wins/losses. This rank will determine which ships it is matched against and how much faction prestige and coin the players on that ship will receive per game.

New players can join the ship lobby and old players can leave and the ship will keep its rank, however if all players leave the ship it will be disbanded and all ships below its rank will rise 1 rank value. Players can create a new ship lobby at any time but that lobby will start at the lowest rank until they work their way up.

While in the ship lobby the player in the captain slot will have the ability to change the ship's load out, make equipment load out requests of the crew, set ship lobby settings, and filter for the type of game they want to join. The captain also can hit the Ready button to put the ship into the match making Queue. The Queue will dump 4 to 8 ships into a match lobby with an unstoppable 30 second timer until match start. This will give captains a short window to change ships to counter enemy builds or better conform to the map. However by readying in the ship lobby they have signaled that they and their crew are combat ready.

If all players on a ship leave in the 30 second match lobby or during a game play a new ship waiting in the queue can be pulled in to replace the missing ship. That ship will be given the same 30 second timer to asses the lobby before joining it. Also the players abandoning their ship mid game will loose their ship lobby's rank.

The previously mentioned lobby settings dictate how people can join the ship.  They can set the ship lobby to accept a player any time, only while the ship lobby is not in game, or lock the ship completely. While a ship is locked the only way a new player can join it is through an invite by the some one already on the ship. Players that get DC'ed can still rejoin within a time period (like they do today). The lobby settings also allow the captain to set a short advertising blurb about the ship lobby like: Clan recruiting, Russian speakers only, PvE for the Yeshan Empire, ect.

Players looking to join a game can create their own Ship lobby or see a list of existing ones. Each ship lobby in the list will show its rank, population, friends of the player (if any), Current game state, lock state, and captain's advertisement text. Clicking on a locked non started game will send a private message to the captain requesting to join the ship. Clicking on an unlocked game will put the player in the ship lobby.

At the end of the match each crew will told if their ship's rank went up or down  and how much prestige/gold the player got based on the outcome of the match. Since they won't be returning to the same match lobby players can jump out of the post game screen at any time to return to the ship lobby.

Since people will spend less time in match lobbies there should be a series of "taverns"  for players to socialize while they look for a ship or wait for their ship to deploy. Taverns should be on a separate voice channel from ship lobby so players can organize their crew or recruit from taverns at the same time.

If a troll joins a ship the captain and crew can leave the ship and form a new one to exclude the troll. The troll will inherit the ship's rank while the original crew would start at the bottom, but the troll will be matched against more experienced crews due to their higher rank and probably get crushed until they rage quit.

An option for a custom lobby should still exist separate from the ship lobby for clan matches and tournament play, but most players would find their game through the ship lobby match maker.

TLDR;
Remove the Match Lobby and do match making on a 4 person Ship Lobby. Give captains more control over who is on their ship at the ship lobby level. Move the social aspect of the game to chat rooms called taverns.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2018, 04:56:50 pm by HamsterIV »

Offline BinaryDragon

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Re: New Lobby System Idea
« Reply #1 on: May 21, 2018, 02:05:15 pm »
I agree with the "no opponents"-lobby where the pilot is in charge of what tools the crew should bring.

About the model you suggest. Where players start out on a ship with rating 0 and work it's way up - I do not agree with. Because it does not solve what imo is the biggest problem this game have. The stomping and consequently loss of new players.

Let's say we have a stack of 4 vet's playing in the system you suggest. They get the super high ratings because they kill everyone they face. To start out with they will very likely get to stomp some novice ships since in your suggestion you mention they should "start at the bottom"

Eventually the match making will not be able to find anyone who can match their ships rating and so they wont have any game to play in.

They will either stop playing, try their luck in a custom lobby or form a new ship and start stomping the novices all over again. They can do this because their ships rating is now back "at the bottom"

About the 30 sec. unstoppable lobby pregame. I really like that idea. But I think it should be a team thing. Where you can establish communication with your allies and discuss strategy. The idea that you can see what your opponents bring and who they might be could make people leave at this point effectively destroying the game for the rest of the players before it have even started.



Offline HamsterIV

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Re: New Lobby System Idea
« Reply #2 on: May 21, 2018, 05:54:58 pm »
The thing behind the ranking system is that it would cycle the game lobby population, If we could represent skill level numerically for the purposes of this example and calculating a win. We can sort by rank (computed by past match) then alternate taking the top 4 then the bottom 4 and making teams top+bottom vs middle two.

Starting situation when Vet ship logs in:
A) Skill 21  Rank 1 -
B) Skill 4    Rank 2 -
C) Skill 32  Rank 3 -
D) Skill 18  Rank 4 -

E) Skill 99   Rank 5 (just joined at bottom)

Game 1 AD(39) vs BC(36), AD wins. The new sorted Rank becomes:
A) Skill 21  Rank 1
D) Skill 18  Rank 2 - down pick
B) Skill 4    Rank 3 - down pick
C) Skill 32  Rank 4 - down pick
E) Skill 99  Rank 5 - down pick

Game 2 DE(117) vs BC(36), DE wins
A) Skill 21  Rank 1 - up pick
D) Skill 18  Rank 2 - up pick
E) Skill 99   Rank 3 - up pick
B) Skill 4    Rank 4 - up pick
C) Skill 32  Rank 5

Game 3 AB(25) vs DE(117), DE wins
D) Skill 18  Rank 1
E) Skill 99   Rank 2 -
B) Skill 4    Rank 3 -
A) Skill 21  Rank 4 -
C) Skill 52  Rank 5 -

Game 4 EC(151) vs BA(25), EC wins
D) Skill 18  Rank 1 -
E) Skill 99   Rank 2 -
C) Skill 52  Rank 3 -
B) Skill 4    Rank 4 -
A) Skill 21  Rank 5

Game 5 DB(22) vs EC(151), EC wins
E) Skill 99   Rank 1
C) Skill 52  Rank 2 -
D) Skill 18  Rank 3 -
B) Skill 4    Rank 4 -
A) Skill 21  Rank 5 -

Game 6 CA(73) vs DB(22), CA wins
E) Skill 99   Rank 1
C) Skill 52  Rank 2 -
A) Skill 21  Rank 3 -
D) Skill 18  Rank 4 -
B) Skill 4    Rank 5 -

Game 7 ED(117) vs CA (73) ED wins

After 7 games E has sorted his way to the top and each ship has had the following experience
A) played 5 games won:2 lost:3
B) played 6 games won:0 lost:6
C) played 6 games won:3 lost:3
D) played 6 games won:4 lost:2
E) played 5 games won:5 lost:0

From this point on E has to sit out every other game (if he keeps winning). Allowing ABCD to escape him for half the future games. Also If a new ship joins the server can bump them into a 3v3 or downgrade a 3v3 back to a 2v2 if a ship is disbanded. In the event that there are 3 ships waiting to start a game and a bunch of active games those 3 ships can socialize in a tavern until one game ends and a ship close to their level is ready.

« Last Edit: May 21, 2018, 06:01:07 pm by HamsterIV »