Are there any plans to improve match balance?

[Dustaz]

Matchmaking is fine, people are not.

Changing it won’t help as long as players won’t learn basics. How to give ammo, heal, do/cover objectives and how to take medic instead of 5th Vassili.

[Amerika]

[quote=“onLooSe;150155”][quote=“Amerika;150129”]It also doesn’t help that I am about 99% certain that they try to match pub teams up as overall Pub ELO average vs. overall Pub ELO average. They are more focused in getting the numbers to reflect each other as opposed to making sure that good players, medium players and new/weak players are balanced among the teams. So a team with one really good player is going to be saddled with the weakest of players while the other team ends up with a bunch of competent if not great players.

So even if a team with a really good player can carry their guys to a win somehow, the weaker players simply get smashed over and over by the other team.

SD really needs to re-evaluate how they match teams up in public games. It can never be perfect due to the drop-in/drop-out nature but at least the start of a match with both teams full/nearly full can be on a somewhat equal footing.[/quote]

Exactly this! A LOT! I cry everytime … well around 80% of the games I start with the autoshuffle in the lobby.

It doesn’t matter if it’s min level 10 or not. All the time I pray for at least one or two capable players in my team, but nooo… let’s just stack them on the enemy team. Yet another 80% of those games my teammates are unwilling to do anything!

I will try to sum up what happens every game from my perspective. We start the match I look at our team mercs of choice… with disappointment of course. Sometimes I smile when I see a medic and try to go assault for firepower. Well, it’s not long before I have to switch so I can heal myself - all my requests for health go in vain, so back to being a medic. I try to explain to my team where to go and how to defend/push… nope, it’s not long after I run out of ammo and have to go get some or kill myself. Go figure - we get pushed back and lost the position but I’m calm because even if I stayed there, the enemy would have ganged up on me or breach from other side, so no worries. You can imagine this crumbles pretty fast and I request someone from the three proxies to switch to some fire power and meat shield. By now i wasted my medpacks for mercs that die instantly. This is where they decide phantom and vassili are such kind of mercs. I get ganged 1v2/3 constantly and it’s already over.

At that point my morale is pretty much dead on the ground beyond recovery and that’s where the flaming starts: “level 50 can’t carry us vs competent players playing as a team”. I keep my cool… play the rest of the game.

I don’t even want to describe the games when we are Jackals… It’s pretty hard to explain to the new players how to secure objectives and how to flank, but not just rush head first into the woodchopper as proxies. All of this while trying to help them and push the enemy team and focusing on the concept that I have to trade my life at least for 2 or 3 enemy players (playing as a medic most of the times).

It’s funny when we manage to steal a win in such scenario - I complement my guys always when they try and listen to me (instead of telling me to shut up while they die one by one) and this is when the enemy team decides to point out how bad I am Good times.

When I draw the line… I cry everytime Only once in a month or less I see something like: “thanks man! You tried and I learned something”. It’s good to see this, but don’t get me wrong - I always balance it when once a month I reach my limits and lash out swearing left and right followed by rage quit for the day.

My most balanced pub games were the ones that had already started or I stack up with a friend but they are pretty few. Mainly goes either I join game insanely bad and almost over when I can’t do jack… or I break the balance and my team pushes through for few minutes.[/quote]

This video is a shining example of what both of us has spoke about. An auto-shuffle of an in-progress game happened and it was pretty one sided after that due to there being zero chance of me being able to carry because of how the teams were sorted and then the inevitable drops from my teammates getting pounded by a better overall team on the other side. And if I would have dropped my team probably wold have been spawncamped (which I think happens often which leads to a lot of animosity).

[onLooSe]

@Amerika perfect… just perfect video representation of what the lobby or the in game shuffle functions does to one pretty high skilled player. Even the merc choices for the second half man… I was about to cry when I saw you with those 2 other fletchers and the 2 vassilies before one of them left the game ofc

The only difference is that you are far better killing machine and they didn’t flamed you for not winning the game for them

This is pretty much hopeless situation. And to be honest I feel more relaxed those 2 evenings after I shared this to see that I’m not alone in this problem, but this has to change. I even started to question myself - shouldn’t I be able to take all the enemy team alone?! Balancing the Elo total numbers on the 2 sides (attackers/defenders) just can’t be the way to go when there are such gaps. I’m kinda hoping for min level 30 servers. (and hidden levels… but this is another topic)

[Amerika]

I just want them to use a system like, “highest rated player team 1, second highest team 2, third highest team 2, fourth highest team 1” as opposed to simply trying to match the skill number on one side to the skill number on the other side. Which, many times, ends in one/two players needing to carry a bunch of lesser skilled players against a full team of moderately skilled players. Which can end up pretty horrible in a lot of different scenarios.

If the system cared more about making teams as balanced as possible across the board (and factored in mercs within their squad) as opposed to balanced by a single number it would make things slightly better overall. It’s not perfect but there is no way to perfectly balance any game (controlled or drop-in/out pub). All you can do is reduce the chances of players having a bad time.

[nokiII]

It also doesn’t help that I am about 99% certain that they try to match pub teams up as overall Pub ELO average vs. overall Pub ELO average. They are more focused in getting the numbers to reflect each other as opposed to making sure that good players, medium players and new/weak players are balanced among the teams. So a team with one really good player is going to be saddled with the weakest of players while the other team ends up with a bunch of competent if not great players.

So even if a team with a really good player can carry their guys to a win somehow, the weaker players simply get smashed over and over by the other team.

It really seems like that is the algorithm they use to balance teams…
http://i.imgur.com/8UvHU9L.jpg this is how my average match looks like and it’s not really fun for anyone on my team tbh. The worst part is, I’m actually not that good and can’t carry consistently.

[farmakoxeris.exe]

balance is up to the players. change teams, vote kick those that don’t ‘‘play’’, vote to shuffle teams, ‘‘trade’’ players to balance the teams

[onLooSe]

balance is up to the players. change teams, vote kick those that don’t ‘‘play’’, vote to shuffle teams, ‘‘trade’’ players to balance the teams

What? Vote kick the players? How will they learn man?! I never do that… I try to encourage them - to boost their morale and help with tips in game… This is the only way to teach them. Vote kick the new guy is total BS. Switch teams?! Amerika even stated he couldn’t quit because his team members would become even more discouraged to play more. You are making no sense at all… srsly!

We try to prove that shuffles (when they pass, which is almost never) and pre-game shuffles don’t work at all! What are you even talking about?