Casual Matchmaking, as far as I can tell, is a means to make more balanced games. There’s a few flaws here, one, there will always be players like Amerika, me, and some beginner player. Players like Amerika or Ragnak, will excel over the rest, the beginners will always need to learn and adapt and get better, and that will always be a trial by fire process, people like me are somewhere in between.
Second, there is NO WAY to quantify any of this, at least not in setting such as this. The only way it will work is a ranking system, where will climb and fall depending on our performance, and even then, we need a HEALTHY PLAYER POPULATION for it to work.
And third, and most important, is if people are missing easy details, aspects, or mechanics in your game, such as ammo, heals, revives, repairing and focusing on objectives, then you should be solving that problem FIRST. Because they are not quite getting the skills they need off the bat, and it snowballs into a problem later on.
Casual Matchmaking will not fix the balance issues we currently have with games, a proper tutorial will, as well as the Assault Courses so we can train and refine our skills.
My proposal is this.
- Make Fragger, Proxy, and Vasilli, free, or make them rewards
- Give Fragger, Proxy, and Vasilli, sections in the tutorial that explains their role and purpose in the game.
- Give them, and Aura, an assault course.
- Make the tutorial mandatory, but not the assault courses. Let those be optional and have rewards when you complete them. As in enough credits to buy the above mercs, or give them to the player upon completion.
By doing this, we are covering all the bases to ensure players are coming into the game with the knowledge they need to succeed and play well as a team.
Common arguments
- It won’t fix bad players being bad
No it won’t, if by ad you mean average kills, accuracy, etc
But fixing situations where people aren’t giving ammo, or healing, or reviving, or handling objectives, is definitely possible. Consider this, we’ve been at this whole “making games more balanced” thing for a YEAR, A FREAKING YEAR, the approach is NOT WORKING. We need to try a different way, you don’t try to rebuild the same structure in the same place, if the foundation is the issue.
- Why should the tutorial be mandatory? The game is easy to understand
Then why are we even HAVING this conversation? Assuming matchmaking matches people based on player ability, and assuming the game is easy to pick up and understand, we should be having balanced games all the time.
Maybe the issue is the maps, maybe the issue is the lack of counter play of certain mercs, or maybe the issue is people aren’t getting the knowledge and skills they need to play the game, from the moment they start their first match. Another analogy, you do not try to teach complex math problems, without teaching people the basic add, subtract, multiply, and divide. If they do not fully understand those, the later concepts will be more difficult. It’s basic understand of how people learn.
- ________ merc should not be free, it’s bad enough as it is in game when there’s more than one.
Then you will literally not be able to tell a difference, SERIOUSLY, you will not know a difference, if it seems like every game there is a Vasilli, Proxy, or whatever, then people are already buying these mercs constantly, likely their first choices. If we make them free, you may see people spending their credits on OTHER mercs instead, and we may see a more varied team composition. Plus, I could argue not everyone needs a Recon or Assault, but an Engineer is an IMMENSELY vital core of the game and how it flows. Every merc has their roles, and the Engineer is such an important one that it is baffling as to why one is not free.
