Balance is still poor. Hiding levels in Casual MatchMaking doesnt hide this fact

[KayDubz]

Poor balance happens in ranked, where I’m the only ranked person on my team (Silver ranked)…vs a bunch of silver and golds on the other team. You get told someone’s rank at the end of the match…but its obvious before the match starts too…when some of my teammates have empty default merc cards, or iron & lead cards.

Poor balance happens in Casual match making, where I wonder why my team is getting rolled often…so I check the number of hours of my teammates, and a lot of the time, I’m matched with people with under 30 hrs in the game. I check the other team and I see vets with high hour counts.

Just because the devs hid the player levels in the scoreboard, cant hide the fact that I can check someones Steam profile and realize they haven’t fixed this balance issue. Honestly…its getting to the point where if I am trying to win, I have to carry my team and it feels like a job.

I play video games to relax and have fun after a long day at work. Not to feel like I have to put in so much effort just to not get rekt. And its not like I can just leave matches without penalty either…Especially when my team refuses to vote surrender.

The balance issue has me near fed up with this game. Over 1500 hours and I’m about to find a different teamshooter that has devs who properly write balance code.

[Nail]

so the whole post was “I’m unhappy, I might look for a new game” ?

I think you’ll find balance issues with most games, sorry

[KayDubz]

@Nail said:
so the whole post was “I’m unhappy, I might look for a new game” ?

I think you’ll find balance issues with most games, sorry

So your whole post was “it happens in other games…so don’t complain about DB”

Which is a bs cop out. Players should be heard…especially loyal players whove stuck with this game for years. Ive played other shooters that didn’t have this problem after constantly promising balance tweaks.

if you have nothing helpful to add, stay out of the thread. My thread def doesn’t need someone posting who has a history of being a contrarian who objects to most criticism of the game or its devs.

[TitaniumRapture]

@KayDubz said:

The balance issue has me near fed up with this game. Over 1500 hours and I’m about to find a different teamshooter that has devs who properly write balance code.

Good luck with that. But their future rental servers could make some segregation of different skill levels.

[watsyurdeal]

Alright…so how would you write it?

In my case, I’d judge the player based on the average accuracy, K:D, playtime, and win to loss ratio, and see how they compare against others.

How the system would work is in 3’s, your aim for example would be either in the top 33%, the bottom 33%, or in the middle, same goes for other stats. Each one would be a point, so…

Player 1

Accuracy, 50%, top 33%, 3 points
K:D, average 2:1, top 33%, 3 points
Win to Loss, 1:2, bottom 33%, 1 point
playtime, about 100 hours, 1 point

So this guy would be about rank 8

Player 2

Accuracy, 40%, Middle, 2 points
K:D, average 1:1, Middle, 2 points
Win to Loss, 2:1, top 33%, 3 points
playtime, about 500 hours, 3 points

So this guy would be about rank 10

Player 3

Accuracy, 25%, Bottom 33%, 1 points
K:D, average 0.5:1, Bottom 33%, 1 points
Win to Loss, 1:2, Bottom 33%, 1 points
playtime, about 50 hours, 1 points

So this guy would be about rank 4

Player 3 would never be matched with Player 1 or 2, but Player 1 and 2 would be matched together depending on the other players

Team 1
A Rank 10
B Rank 10
C Rank 8
D Rank 8
E Rank 8

Team 2

A Rank 9
B Rank 9
C Rank 9
D Rank 9
E Rank 9

This would ideally be a well balanced game, but of course there’s still potential for it to be an absolute steam roll. Like any other match, even if you have all Rank 9’s on both teams there is STILL nuance there, maybe the people on team 2 play better, maybe team 1 focuses more on the objective. Maybe team 2 is still very scattered and constantly in 1v1s instead of sticking together.

Matchmaking is such a difficult thing to do right, which is why I’m perplexed as to why we have 2 separate ones that only compound the issue even further.

[KayDubz]

The thing with Dirty Bomb is, that low level/low hour players are generally still learning the game. Its usually a very good indicator of how good they will be.

Its not rocket science to figure out why a team gets rekt in ranked when they have an unranked low hour player on their team testing out Vasilli or Phantom for the first time. Instead of doing that in a public match.

There’s just a lot of examples of certain behavior you see low level/low hour player do, rather than vets with higher hours and higher ranks.

Honestly, I would be happy if the devs just made sure each team had the same proportion of players above and below level 15 or 20. That seems to give me the best games back when we had Objective in server browser. Sure it isn’t perfect or likely not statistically accurate in terms of putting people on teams…but it would surely even the teams out in terms of game experience.

Right now I cant stand that Casual MM is basically mini ranked with these balance issues.

[watsyurdeal]

But that’s my point, you said it yourself that it’s not perfect. A system designed with the idea of surely it must be better than current, it’s still going to result in the same problems. This is why casual matchmaking is something I was against from the get go, all that time spent on it could have be spent on the guns, the abilities, and making sure each one was as finely tuned as possible.

[woodchip]

It’s safe to say the SD MMR algorithm is never going to be as good as Overwatch’s. The Overwatch guys are probably spending literally 10x the manpower on this particular feature, just because they have so much more resources. They also have 100x the player base, so their system can afford to be vastly more selective.

So, roughly, OW QM balance is an almost totally unobtainable upper bound to QM balance. But OW QM is still a brutal stomp maybe one game in 3, generously one game in 4. If you define ‘stomp’ as never leaving spawn then maybe 1 game in 5. So it would be a miraculous success if SD could produce a balancedish CMM game more than 70% of the time.

But even if they did that, I’m not sure it would be much of an improvement over the server browser. Trying to compete with Overwatch by emulating Overwatch is a fools errand. You guys build one hell of a Jeep–nothing drives like it–but you aren’t going to beat Audi by building a better sedan.

[GatoCommodore]

if multibillion dollaridoos Blizzaridoo or even E(ternal) A(rse) with their million playerbase cant even balance petty stuff like casual matchmaking

how do you think small dev like SD with a game like DB can?

[blufflord]

@KayDubz said:
I’m about to find a different teamshooter that has devs who properly write balance code.

When you find it, please tell me. But it needs to be free tho, I’m poor af. And also not p2w. And also not a generic TDM shooter, that gets boring quick.

[WatchAsILead]

@KayDubz said:

@Nail said:
so the whole post was “I’m unhappy, I might look for a new game” ?

I think you’ll find balance issues with most games, sorry

So your whole post was “it happens in other games…so don’t complain about DB”

Which is a bs cop out. Players should be heard…especially loyal players whove stuck with this game for years. Ive played other shooters that didn’t have this problem after constantly promising balance tweaks.

if you have nothing helpful to add, stay out of the thread. My thread def doesn’t need someone posting who has a history of being a contrarian who objects to most criticism of the game or its devs.

You find me a game that perfectly balances teams, because Me, and a majority of players in this forums have played FPS games if we couldn’t find it, doubt you could. Theres not enough computing power in the world to perfectly balance every match, humans are dynamic and play differently every game, Sometimes people have great games, sometimes players have awful games. How is a computer supposed to compensate for that? Its impossible

[ImSploosh]

No games ever have perfectly balanced matches. CMM was obviously not going to work either. Using the server browser was actually casual and gave better balanced matches. You could also balance them yourself if necessary. We should have just kept the server browser or at least made a matchmaking system similar to that of games like CoD where casual playing still exists. CMM isn’t casual, it’s just ranked without rewards.

Although level doesn’t equate to skill, we would have been much better off just balancing matches according to level in the lobby and as new players join, continue the same balancing idea. CMM is/was unnecessary.

[Eox]

This kind of issue exists in ranked because we don’t have enough people playing competitive. Because some high ranked groups are the only high ranked group playing at the moment, they end up waiting a very long time in the matchmaking queue just to end up getting matched against low ranked players.

The MM algorithm, if you queue with a 5 man team, works more or less like this : it’s like a crircle that starts at the ELO rank of your own team and expands over time. It also prioritizes other 5 man queues as far as I know. It does the same with other groups. As time flows, the minimum and maximum elo values for your match will increase more and more. When two “circles” cross, the match begins. So what happens when you reach 30 minutes of queue as a 5 Cobalt player queue ? You end up getting matched with Bronze players who likely got instantly matched with you.

Ranked would work if more players would join the game. Sadly, those kind of issues drive people away, thinking that the ranked MM algorithm doesn’t work. Most people fail to understand that.

[KayDubz]

What would be smarter is to queue ten people to a room, and then appropriately shuffle players into balanced teams. Doing it 5 at a time with a low player base, leads to the issue of a bunch of golds and cobalts going up against a team filled with much lower or unranked players.

[WatchAsILead]

@KayDubz said:
What would be smarter is to queue ten people to a room, and then appropriately shuffle players into balanced teams. Doing it 5 at a time with a low player base, leads to the issue of a bunch of golds and cobalts going up against a team filled with much lower or unranked players.

But I dont want to be shuffled with randos, I want to play with a team that works well with my playstyle.

[DeaDmaN2be]

@Eox said:

Ranked would work if more players would join the game. Sadly, those kind of issues drive people away, thinking that the ranked MM algorithm doesn’t work. Most people fail to understand that.

Understanding and liking it are two different pair of shoes. It’s fine that the system would work with a big playerbase but since there is none yet it will not help to put beginners in queues where they get stumped over and over again. It’s natural that you will not have fun and leave the game after a while. So it’s unsatisfying for both, beginners and the high level that get queued together.

Since we know there is only a hand full of high level players how likely is it to queue with 5 of those people and get matched with another group compared to them? If you want to have this experience atm then they should allow privat servers where those clans could meet and besides the normal ranked like it is atm. Like it is now, as soon as you have 5 average or good players sticking together via voice chat against a bunch of queued people not being a pre party it ends always in a stump.

[znuund]

I actually enjoyed every CMM game I played until now. Not that many, maybe 20 or so. But I really enjoyed CMM and I did not win all of them, some of them I even lost at the first stage. But it was a enjoyable game. Players were getting what needed to be done and everyone tried to help according to his merc’s role.
But besides that I really think that the issue is the amount of players. I am still unranked and I might not even get a rank. But maybe I will give it a shot this season to see how terrible RMM really is (And to get those awesome ranked cards :D)

[Nail]

@KayDubz said:

@Nail said:
so the whole post was “I’m unhappy, I might look for a new game” ?

I think you’ll find balance issues with most games, sorry

So your whole post was “it happens in other games…so don’t complain about DB”

Which is a bs cop out. Players should be heard…especially loyal players whove stuck with this game for years. Ive played other shooters that didn’t have this problem after constantly promising balance tweaks.

if you have nothing helpful to add, stay out of the thread. My thread def doesn’t need someone posting who has a history of being a contrarian who objects to most criticism of the game or its devs.

yep I defend the devs, especially against members like yourself who call them incompetent and thieves, they’re hard working people trying to do a job

btw, I’ll post where I want

[KayDubz]

@Nail said:

@KayDubz said:

@Nail said:
so the whole post was “I’m unhappy, I might look for a new game” ?

I think you’ll find balance issues with most games, sorry

So your whole post was “it happens in other games…so don’t complain about DB”

Which is a bs cop out. Players should be heard…especially loyal players whove stuck with this game for years. Ive played other shooters that didn’t have this problem after constantly promising balance tweaks.

if you have nothing helpful to add, stay out of the thread. My thread def doesn’t need someone posting who has a history of being a contrarian who objects to most criticism of the game or its devs.

yep I defend the devs, especially against members like yourself who call them incompetent and thieves, they’re hard working people trying to do a job

btw, I’ll post where I want

Who’s calling them thieves? I’m simply saying they need to do a better job and LISTEN to their players. Half the time it seems like they just force bad decisions upon us.

You can continue to blindly defend them. You’ve done so throughout your 3k post history.

[bgyoshi]

More threads that are nothing but complaining with solutions that are just rewinding the game back before anything was changed.

Quit if you don’t like the game.

“Only queue players that are close to the same level”

They did that, queues were about 30 minutes long on average

“Shuffle 10 players around until teams are even”

That defeats the purpose of queuing on a team with your friends, the intent of CMM

“Use only the same proportion of high and low levels on a team”

So when they have 6 level 50+ and 3 level 19 and 3 level 4 in queue, where does the low levels go? 50 50 50 19 4 4 vs 50 50 50 19 19 4 makes people go “LOOK AT HOW IMBALANCED THIS GAME WAS IT WAS JUST 6v4 AND WE GOT REKT STUPID SD”

Or you just force the newbs to wait for a match? What about when there’s 7 under L10, 3 Over L30, and 2 under L20, do you just force everyone to wait until more people join? People whine about high queue times instead.

Offer actual solutions, like @watsyurdeal does. Tell @Nail he just panders to SD all you want, at least he’s contributing to the community, unlike your commonly whiny unhelpful threads.