Community Question: Matchmaking

(badman) #1

Welcome to another blatant installment of our Community Questions. This one’s all about matchmaking and we’d like to know from you what’s most important to you when using matchmaking to find that perfect multiplayer game. Since matchmaking is largely at home on the consoles, this question is primarily aimed at citizens of those platforms, but anyone who’s had any sort of experience with matchmaking systems is more than welcome to chime in.

Please pick from the poll options above and briefly let us know the reasons behind your choice(s). We look forward to your replies!

On a side note, we totally understand that server browsers are the way to go on PC - this question is purely aimed at getting some feedback from the console crowd. To help keep things constructive, please keep this thread free of PC vs console arguments, as well. Thanks, community!

(Faerie) #2

I’m a casual gamer, and therefore not very good. My friends will put up with it, but strangers (and some Splash Damage staff) are unappreciative of my uselessness and I don’t like being shouted at. :frowning: Also I have no patience, so I’d rather just play with bots than sit around and wait for everyone to get themselves together and join in :slight_smile:

(engiebenjy) #3

I think number 1 for me would be human players. Playing against bots irritates me immensely, when i frag someone i don’t want to be unsure if it was a human or not. Obviously I think everyone wants a balanced game skill wise, I get no satisfaction being on a stacked team - I actually prefer to be on the weaker side.

Also being able to get into a game with my psn friends is important.

(Dormamu) #4

Skill-based game, the others may have a slightly higher skill than mine, cos if we are all equal, then there is nothing for me to improve/learn.
Quick Start Game - if you want to chat, use messenger/zwitter :smiley:

(AmishWarMachine) #5

Full Human Game - AI is great for filling in a slot while in wait for another player to join, but I’d much rather wait a few seconds for a full lobby to play with all humans. Maybe a compromise to this would be to make “full human” actually Full -1 or Full -2. Sitting in a room (for any duration) of 15 players waiting for #16 to show… could lead to people bailing on the lobby, just to start the whole waiting game again. (which I understand is argument for quick start)

Skill-based Game - There are times that one team is “stacked” and steamrolls the other repeatedly. Don’t like being on either side of the coin, myself. Would be nice to have a method of balancing things out and making all games competitive.

Friendly Game - Yes please, this is a win-win no matter how you cut it. Hopefully you can make this and skill-based balancing work together.

(murka) #6

Imho one important thing is a queue to join a full server. I don’t want to click the join button like mad.

(BioSnark) #7

My favorite match making system is where I look at a server browser, switch to favorites and doubleclick the one I want to join… with regard to server settings on that fav server I just joined…

All humans all the way. However, even if you have a population that supports a couple dozen full games (talking ~20 players) running concurrently, there can still be a significant down time for players queuing up in the matchmaking system… and longer, obviously, with more MM preference settings. Having a min starting player count and drop-ins would be far better for wait times in non-competitive game modes. This min player count should be human to avoid the human vs bot stackups you get complaints of in Brink. Having bots then filling in for a team that’s one - two players down isn’t unreasonable. However, if there isn’t a way of balancing the human players on each team, it’s not much fun for anyone having a mostly human team fighting a mostly bot team.

Skill balancing is fine but better with symmetrical teams. It’ll never be perfect but it can be better than nothing and also serves as a convenient scapegoat. Should, of course, go with a proper server list and not a automated queue joining a random game server.

PS. Yes, I be a PC gamer here who’s played games with matchmaking including games with skill based match making.

(DarkangelUK) #8

When playing console I just want to find human players and get on as quick as possible. If i want to play with friends we can organize a party and join collectively as a group, but myself I just went to find people and play.

(Crytiqal) #9

My thoughts on how I would like it:

Full Human Game:
People choose to play against humans so they join the lobby and wait for 16 players to fill up.

If they feel like waiting takes too long, they can all press “ready-up” and the game will start regardless if it’s full of humans or not (with a minimum player size of 4v4 maybe) and the remaining slots get filled up by bots who leave when a player joins.
You can set a percentage of players who have to press ready-up before the game starts, like 80%.
Making it effectivly an Quick Start Game

Maybe to make it more obvious that bots will fill in the remaining spots, instead of ready-up, someone could start a vote:
“Do you want to Quick start the game?”
This way people would know the effect of their choice immediatly.

Ofcourse, when everyone is ready, the game then mixes the teams by:

  1. Friends
  2. Skill based

In that order

my 2 cents

(BiigDaddyDellta) #10

I like a competetive game even if it’s casual. It’s really no fun to cream or be creamed by an opposing team over and over and over. I think a ranking system is a positive thing when it comes to online multiplayer, unless it’s worthless Halo reach case-in-point, it provides an always upgrading scale of play for those who continue to dominate and want to play on a higher level. along with that less frequent less harcore players also can play whenever they want without getting stomped too. As long as the lobbies have a rank no rank system in place.

(Azure19) #11

For me, is to get in a match filled with plenty of players.

(wolfnemesis75) #12

For me its about being in a match with friends AND in the shortest amount of time which means I am fine with bots in order to do that and I LOVE drop in and out play aspect. So, friends then Quick Start. So Both. My order of Preference in terms of priority:
1.) Friendly Game
2.) Quick Star Game
3.) Full Humans Game

Regional game I just don’t like, I want to play with people all over the world. I don’t care if they don’t speak my language.

Skill Based search should be kept to a separate Matchmaking all together called Ranked or Clan and is of the LOWEST priority for me. If it’s done with some true skill arbitrary measurement then I say NO WAY. Because, the stiffer the competition, the more you should lose, and the lower a True Skill rank would go. If its done with EXP level Rank, then sure.

(Humate) #13

In really well made games, ELO systems and Rank matchmaking dont guarantee close games - because sometimes you will make more mistakes than usual, or the enemy will make less mistakes than usual… a good game is one which allows for that to happen…

Unfortunately you cant have the convenience that match making brings, and be able to control the type of player you want to go up against. You have to give one of them up. If you happen to get creamed all the time, the best way is to just play with friends you know are at your level. :slight_smile:

(wolfnemesis75) #14

Didn’t realize it was multi vote because I was so excited about this poll and didn’t see it until today. :frowning: So, I vote for everything except Regional.

(thesuzukimethod) #15

For the full human complement option - I would set the threshold at 5 or 6 - say 6 for this discussion - not 8 (to start the match) and consider using bots to fill in the gap between 0 and 6, but to force 6v6 before adding anyone else…meaning, you cant have 8 humans vs. 4 humans and 4 bots. or something like that.

The shorter answer is I’d MUCH rather play 6 v 6 (all humans (no bots)) than be on either the 8 or the 4 human side in an 8v8 (8 humans vs. 4humans/4bots). Whatever it takes to make that happen.

(wolfnemesis75) #16

[QUOTE=thesuzukimethod;375982]For the full human complement option - I would set the threshold at 5 or 6 - say 6 for this discussion - not 8 (to start the match) and consider using bots to fill in the gap between 0 and 6, but to force 6v6 before adding anyone else…meaning, you cant have 8 humans vs. 4 humans and 4 bots. or something like that.

The shorter answer is I’d MUCH rather play 6 v 6 (all humans (no bots)) than be on either the 8 or the 4 human side in an 8v8 (8 humans vs. 4humans/4bots). Whatever it takes to make that happen.[/QUOTE]That sounds reasonable. It other words, bots are only added to even-out a team. So if one side has 7 players and the other has 6, then 1 bot is added to one side to make it 7v7?

(SinDonor) #17

Boom:

http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/showthread.php/30761-Hey-SD-Console-matchmaking-fix-proposal

(shagileo) #18

This

I hate bots - If I want to play VS AI, then I’d play single player campaign mode, but if you’re going multiplayer, give me humans all the way

(wolfnemesis75) #19

Full Human Game probably means Friends too. SO, logically, I can see the reason why this would just open it up so that you can play with anyone. As long as a party of friends can get into the same match, that’s also key too.

(engiebenjy) #20

[QUOTE=shagileo;375995]This

I hate bots - If I want to play VS AI, then I’d play single player campaign mode, but if you’re going multiplayer, give me humans all the way[/QUOTE]

Exactly what I thought!

I dont mind the odd bot filling a slot temporarily like if its 8v7 humans i would prefer 8v7 + 1 bot to make it 8v8.

If i am running around shooting more bots than humans i might aswell be playing offline…