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

[watsyurdeal]

And don’t forget to flag people you disagree with, cause that helps

[KayDubz]

@watsyurdeal said:
And don’t forget to flag people you disagree with, cause that helps

I’m fine with members flagging a troll who runs around threads telling everyone to stop playing whenever they criticize the direction of the game.

[woodchip]

Yeah the dude is spamming 5 different threads with derailing trolling. His signal to noise ratio is really bad. We get it: no one is offering constructive criticism and we should all stop playing the game if we don’t like patch 1.x more than patch 1.y.

But offering solutions is usually NOT the best kind of feedback for game devs. Generally, devs are a lot better at solving design problems than players. See: most of the phantom and Javelin threads. So it’s as or more useful for players to talk about what they don’t find fun, and why they think it isn’t fun. The negative feedback towards Jav (too cheesy, too powerful, whatever) is good feedback, and will contribute to a better game. The “solutions to fix Jav” threads are usually mostly worthless, because players aren’t good game devs. Players are primarily good at telling devs when they are having more or less fun, and secondarily why they think they are having more or less fun. Sometimes players have good or interesting ideas to help the game or solve a problem, but it’s very rare. The purpose of these forums isn’t to design the game by committee, it’s to let the devs know what we think of their changes and why, as specifically as possible.

So yoshi running around derailing 5 different threads with “only solution threads are productive” is basically spam. This thread is good feedback. If the purpose of hiding level was to hide team imbalance (which it may be, in part) then the fact that players still perceive imbalance with the intro screens & steam profile can be productive feedback.

You can criticize the thread lots of ways and I think it should be criticized. For instance, in lots of games it IS hard to tell who the lowest and highest level player on your team is at the start, and that can lead to less flaming and sometimes better teamwork. Overall, I think the level removal is a good feature.

But it’s also true that it doesn’t always alleviate the knowledge that sometimes the enemy team averages 3x more hours played, which is the thrust of dubz complaint. It might seem obvious that “well, players will just check steam profiles and find out anyway”, but actually that is the sort of thing that ISN’T obvious when you are designing a feature. It’s easy to err on the side of optimism for a new feature like: “Yeah, they could check steam profiles, but they probably won’t do that very often” or “ok, that’s an issue, but the default loadout give away is going to be so rare it won’t really matter.” Especially when you have a truly good idea like level removal, designers tend to have confirmation bias towards the designs other strengths. And the only real way to escape that bubble is to hear negative player feedback like this thread.

[bgyoshi]

@woodchip said:

! > Yeah the dude is spamming 5 different threads with derailing trolling. His signal to noise ratio is really bad. We get it: no one is offering constructive criticism and we should all stop playing the game if we don’t like patch 1.x more than patch 1.y.
! >
! > Offering solutions is actually usually NOT the best kind of feedback for game devs. Generally, devs are a lot better at solving design problems than players. See: most of the phantom and Javelin threads. So it’s as or more useful for players to talk about what they don’t find fun, and why they think it isn’t fun. The negative feedback towards Jav (too cheesy, too powerful, whatever) is good feedback, and will contribute to a better game. The “solutions to fix Jav” threads are usually mostly worthless, because players aren’t good game devs. Players are primarily good at telling devs when they are having more or less fun, and secondarily why they think they are having more or less fun. Sometimes players have good or interesting ideas to help the game or solve a problem, but it’s very rare.
! >
! > So yoshi running around derailing 5 different threads with “only solution threads are productive” is basically spam. This thread is good feedback. If the purpose of hiding level was to hide team imbalance (which it may be, in part) then the fact that players still perceive imbalance with the intro screens & steam profile can be productive feedback.
! >
! > You can criticize the thread lots of ways and I think it should be criticized. For instance, in lots of games it IS hard to tell who the lowest and highest level player on your team is at the start, and that can lead to less flaming and sometimes better teamwork. Overall, I think the level removal is a good feature.
! >
! > But it’s also true that it doesn’t always alleviate the knowledge that sometimes the enemy team averages 3x more hours played, which is the thrust of dubz complaint.

Yeah but here’s the problem.

“I don’t like CMM because the matchmaking takes a very long time. I don’t know why it does but I really don’t want to wait that long.” Is helpful.

“I don’t like CMM because matches are imbalanced. I will quit playing this game SD is brainless garbage and don’t listen to the community you idiots suck.” Is not helpful.

Or more specifically

“I don’t like CMM ‘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.’” Is not helpful.

“I don’t like CMM because the balance is poor and it might be better if you made some system of determining a player’s skill since waiting for players of similar level causes the queue time to be unreasonably long. Something needs to change we need players closer in skill while keeping queue times low.” Is helpful.

“I don’t like CMM balance it’s horrible you should just only match players of similar level.” Is not helpful solely because it’s just a reversal of what was already done before.

I survived the crap of 2016 caused by threads like this. Forgive me for actively calling it out to prevent another full year of trash.

[woodchip]

I agree that threatening to quit the game or attacking the developers is unproductive hyperbole and derailing. But there’s little to none of that in this thread. As game forum threads go, this post and responses are unusually valuable.

“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.”

Is very good feedback. It’s specific and insightful. He describes himself as a casual player, and then talks about how CMM isn’t giving him a casual experience, because of inconsistent matchmaking balance and surrender mechanics and so on. Whereas before he could just leave a stacked server, now he feels like he can’t (debatable, but his perception is what counts here), and that leads him to having a bad time. I personally think there are other reasons he doesn’t mention for why CMM isn’t giving him his casual experience, but his explanation for his own experience is generally more important and useful than my hypothesis for his experience.

“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”

This is more borderline because of tone, but it’s still valuable feedback. If you are a designer and you make a major game change which causes players with 1500 hours, absolutely hardcore Dirtybomb is my #1 game players, to consider quitting over it… You definitely want to know that, even if it is hard to hear.

[bgyoshi]

@woodchip said:

“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.”

Is empty whining at a dev and not feedback at all. The devs already stated they’re not making a “come home and relax and don’t get rekt” game, they’re making a competitive shooter with the specific intent of the game being hard mode with low TTK. They want you to get rekt, especially if you’re new.

[KayDubz]

@woodchip said:

This is more borderline because of tone, but it’s still valuable feedback. If you are a designer and you make a major game change which causes players with 1500 hours, absolutely hardcore Dirtybomb is my #1 game players, to consider quitting over it… You definitely want to know that, even if it is hard to hear.

Bingo! Id like to think devs find my feedback valuable, considering how much I play the game and how much game knowledge I have (maps, player stats, mechanics).

But I do find myself increasing frustrated that the game isn’t gaining many more players. And though Ive tried not to go to other shooters…I’m getting close. I dealt with a lower player base and bugs for a long time when compared to other games Ive played with higher player counts and quicker development (more map releases and servers)

I used to be a hardcore COD4 player. I never really liked any other COD game. But I played COD 4 into the ground. And what made the game great despite its problems, was the variety of servers, and a good amount of maps. I could find a game anytime I wanted…and eventually found favorite servers.

Now the devs of Dirty Bomb remove my favorite game type (7v7 and 8v8 Objective), still haven’t fixed the weapon switch bug with my main merc Fletcher, on top of long wait times for Ranked and even Casual some times.

I’m well within my right as a loyal player (with many hours) to be upset and nearing my end with this game. My favorite game type was removed, and Ive been forced into using a queue up system to find games with fewer player. When I never had to play this way before.

Certain posters here want to dismiss me…but the devs and mods need to see this.

EDIT :
@stayfreshshoe , I know you guys work hard. But a lot of players enjoy large servers and Objective server browser. If Dirty Bomb just had user created (or rented) servers, and more maps with more game types, this game could truly take off. I wish you guys wouldn’t take things out of the game when you introduce something new.

[woodchip]

@bgyoshi said:

@woodchip said:

“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.”

Is empty whining at a dev and not feedback at all. The devs already stated they’re not making a “come home and relax and don’t get rekt” game, they’re making a competitive shooter with the specific intent of the game being hard mode with low TTK. They want you to get rekt, especially if you’re new.

Ok, well… we’re already derailing this thread so this will be my last response.

First, I would urge you to be cautious when you interpret Dev statements about what they want for their game. I don’t know what statements you are referring to exactly, but its common for devs to highlight their commitment to, say, competitive and fair play, and have that be interpreted as their not being committed to a rewarding casual or new player experience. Usually, developers care about all of these things. But players will tend to seize on isolated statements as proof that the devs are prioritizing only their favored aspect of the game. To be fair, this happens in part because Dev statements are typically designed to hype players about features and communicate to everyone that they especially care about their favorite part of the game. If you’ve ever heard Jeff Kaplan talk about Dva, you know what I mean.

I am confident SD cares about the casual experience. Ironically, one of the major objectives of CMM was likely to improve the less skilled experience by segregating the player pools by skill. Maybe, they do want new players to ‘get rekt’, though I doubt it in light of how much they disrupted the game in order to protect new players from vets. But even if they do want a punishing learning curve, they still probably care greatly about casual enjoyment.

You need to be open minded regarding the fact that other players seek different things from this game. Makes them like and enjoy different things, and dislike and get frustrated by different things than you would. The diversity of players is why diverse feedback like this thread is important.

[KayDubz]

@bgyoshi said:

@woodchip said:

“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.”

Is empty whining at a dev and not feedback at all. The devs already stated they’re not making a “come home and relax and don’t get rekt” game, they’re making a competitive shooter with the specific intent of the game being hard mode with low TTK. They want you to get rekt, especially if you’re new.

Its not empty whining. Its specifically telling the devs that balancing issues still exist so badly, and that the player base is so low…that I have to work really hard to carry teams to victory way too often. I don’t mind a challenging game…I want that…because I hate stomps.

But I hate always having to carry my team. Sometimes I go 4 or 5 straight casual games carrying a team. And that’s switching between Medic, Engineer, and Fire support all match…while getting 5 to 8k more points than the next person on my team.

Sometimes I cant take a break and relax with mercs who aren’t my main mercs, if I don’t want my entire team getting rekt. Because once that happens the server empties quickly.

MOST OF THE PLAYER BASE DOES NOT PLAY RANKED MODE. So if the devs want to simply focus on competitive mode, the game will die a slow death. I should be able to play casual matches without feeling like I have to carry my team every freaking game.

And another reason why that happens if because there are less and less veterans playing this game. Even before the devs made changes to"Minimum 10" and “Minimum level 20” servers, they were hardly ever full.

[Lord_Coctus]

@znuund said:
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)

I’ve played a bunch of CMM and can happily confirm that most games were or close to being balanced.

Those dumb Skyhammers or Auras can appear once in a while but you can learn to deal with it.

[watsyurdeal]

Only thing I can interpret from the devs is they want to make games more balanced. But balance comes from the perception that players feel they have options in dealing with certain mechanics.

In other words, forget matchmaking, improve counter play.

[GatoCommodore]

we should get a medal for playing thru 2016 alone

[B_Montiel]

What am I reading ?

@woodchip said:
I am confident SD cares about the casual experience. Ironically, one of the major objectives of CMM was likely to improve the less skilled experience by segregating the player pools by skill.

No. Absolutely not. What I clearly read in all the recent trade about CMM and its balance is a massive misunderstanding many people did about it.

CMM, as well as the lobby scramble you have between games on a regular server (the one you should let work to get balanced games by staying on the same server as much as you can), uses a pub skill rating mostly based on your W/L ratio, K/D and XP/min on the last n games (let’s say 10). Which is totally far from accurate skill representation.
For example :
1- level 10 quite accustomed to the game play on a server full of newcomers. He might get a great K/D, and tremendous W/L, which will increase his pub rating.
2 - level 120 plays medic on a server full of vets, and he’s a bit tired after a long day of work. He’ll get a crappy pub skill rating.

There’s nothing that will avoid them to meet on CMM right now. But the level 120 will definitely crush the level 10 no matter what.

From the start, even when the game was in alpha, the best solution was putting rentable community servers. It’s too late already though…

[Eox]

Okay, this is getting downhill. Closing.