Competitive needs improving ASAP (due to increased player count)

(Ruvan) #1

With the most recent round of key giveaways, we’re seeing much more massive skill gaps between players in the casual system. These skill gaps are causing many more one sided fights than previously. I think I speak for many of us when I say this is tiresome - especially if you’re lumped with a useless team across multiple matches/servers.

Dirty Bomb already has a solution to this - the competitive queue, however, the implementation needs improving a little bit, in my opinion. To elaborate:

  1. There is no indication of how long queue times are. People are more likely to queue if the wait is reasonable. (Yes, I do understand devs are at the mercy of player count, but still.)
  2. There are really no incentives to bother to play in the competitive queue over the normal. What if you got increased experience gain (or something like that) in the competitive queue as a temporary measure until player count increases?
(Szakalot) #2

[quote=“Ruvan;10568”]With the most recent round of key giveaways, we’re seeing much more massive skill gaps between players in the casual system. These skill gaps are causing many more one sided fights than previously. I think I speak for many of us when I say this is tiresome - especially if you’re lumped with a useless team across multiple matches/servers.

Dirty Bomb already has a solution to this - the competitive queue, however, the implementation needs improving a little bit, in my opinion. To elaborate:

[list=1]
[]There is no indication of how long queue times are. People are more likely to queue if the wait is reasonable. (Yes, I do understand devs are at the mercy of player count, but still.)
[]There are really no incentives to bother to play in the competitive queue over the normal. What if you got increased experience gain (or something like that) in the competitive queue as a temporary measure until player count increases?
[/list][/quote]

good post

I’d like increased $$ rate during peak times to get the MM ball rolling. Once people start matchmaking in the busy hours, it will hopefully start spreading into the general player base.

But I do not expect trouble once open beta is in season, or better yet, ranked system.

(Humbug) #3

PLEASE, don’t increase credit rate for ranked.
there will be people who play ranked for more credits, but don’t care for their rank at all.
Just give us ranks and leaderboards and people will start playing ranked.

(Szakalot) #4

[quote=“Humbug;18035”]PLEASE, don’t increase credit rate for ranked.
there will be people who play ranked for more credits, but don’t care for their rank at all.
Just give us ranks and leaderboards and people will start playing ranked.[/quote]

You could pull it together as a win-bonus, which is a TERRIBLE idea for casual (-> stacked teams), but works really well in matchmaking.

This way matchmaking provides a bigger $$-increase rate, while making people play2win at the same time.

(Ruvan) #5

[quote=“Humbug;18035”]PLEASE, don’t increase credit rate for ranked.
there will be people who play ranked for more credits, but don’t care for their rank at all.
Just give us ranks and leaderboards and people will start playing ranked.[/quote]

Obviously it’s not a great solution in the long term, which is why I suggested it as a temporary solution. Actually having competitive matches going on with the occasional annoying farmer is surely better than having none at all.

Although, your ideas are good as well and Szakalot’s solution pretty much fixes any qualms you may have with it.

(Gi.Am) #6

Already said it in another tread, but I would remove the lvl. cap this way the playerbase for competive is instantly increased (the matchmaking would sort the skill gaps / teambalance out). And maybe have a weekend event to jumpstart it.

I also like the added win bonus. Even if people would try to farm it, if the matchmaking aims for a 50% win/loss rate (like they normaly do these days) it should stay in check.

(Zenity) #7

I am absolutely in favour of increased XP/credit gain for competitive. It’s fair anyway, considering that it takes more time to queue up and requires more of a commitment. If people play ranked only for the credit gain I have no problem with that. If they don’t take the mode seriously, their rank will reflect that.

Bonus credits only for wins is a good idea, but can fail terribly due to how it encourages smurfing. When ranked matchmaking works correctly, you should always win a little more than 50% of your matches anyway.

But I think far more important are technical improvements to competitive. Mainly actually using ranks (duh) and better visualisation of how many people are queued up. Not just when you start queueing but constantly, so as soon as somebody queues up, everybody sees it on the Play tab.

(Szakalot) #8

[quote=“Zenity;18071”]Bonus credits only for wins is a good idea, but can fail terribly due to how it encourages smurfing. When ranked matchmaking works correctly, you should always win a little more than 50% of your matches anyway.
[/quote]

encourage smurfing? you mean: make another account to start unlocking mercs from the very beginning?

don’t think that is a very good idea for the smurfer : P

(Zenity) #9

Sorry, smurfing is the wrong term. I think sandbagging is what I was looking for. Find a way to derank quickly (or play badly on purpose in your initial placement matches), then beat up weaker players to get the win bonuses.

(Szakalot) #10

doesn’t seem very efficient. With leave penalties for leaving matches quickly you’d have to resort to griefing your teammates, which would hopefully get you kicked (and give you another penalty).

Overall, I’d much rather worry about such exploit-y mechanics when they come, rather than diminish potential growth by fear of abuse.

(arcane) #11

Won’t the stats and ranks that matchmaking are going to offer soon be the incentives, just like they are on CSGO and Dota 2 etc. I’m sure that’s what the devs are working towards.

(Zenity) #12

doesn’t seem very efficient. With leave penalties for leaving matches quickly you’d have to resort to griefing your teammates, which would hopefully get you kicked (and give you another penalty).

Overall, I’d much rather worry about such exploit-y mechanics when they come, rather than diminish potential growth by fear of abuse.[/quote]

That would still leave playing poorly in your placement matches. It would also reward being a bad player to begin with, because then it’s easier to improve and make profit from winning more than 50% matches, whereas players who are good to begin with have a much harder time.

I don’t think there is a risk to the growth potential, I just believe that a flat bonus for playing competitive is more logical and less exploitable than specifically rewarding only wins. And a flat bonus is going to be plenty of incentive to play ranked. It would also make people less salty about their teammates playing poorly. Judging from Dota2 and CSGO, there will be more than enough salt to begin with. :slight_smile:

(Szakalot) #13

nobody is talknig abour rewarding only wins!

$$$ rates are as they are now; plus a fixed $$$ bonus for winning.

(Zenity) #14

[quote=“Szakalot;18162”]nobody is talknig abour rewarding only wins!

$$$ rates are as they are now; plus a fixed $$$ bonus for winning.[/quote]

Yes I know, I mean extra rewards.

(son!) #15

I’d play MM if I thought it’d better the chances of me getting placed against experienced players. But afaik there is no skill-o-meter based MM (mostly judging by the MM stress test from awhile ago) so there’s not much point–sit in queue to have the experience I could have in a casual. Knowing the activity level of the MM (# queued, expected/avg queue time) would also be nice, because a month ago you had to pull viewers from popular db streams to get any MM going…

(Kroad) #16

i think comp mm should become the main focus of the game, with server browser being a secondary thing, like with csgo

easiest change for this would be ui, right now comp mm is on the right side and so seems less important than server browser, should be swapped around and even then i think comp mm should stand out more

then maybe disable comp mm for a week or two, then bring it back with new features (friendly fire, team collision, playing queueing numbers), everyone will start playing it at the same time to test it and it might actually become alive

(SchwaD) #17

Good idea!

I also hope developers will do something to make MM popular. I really liked it how CSGO worked and motivated everyone to get better.

(triteTongs) #18

From what I have seen, there is more skilled players that play stopwatch than objective. (Hard to tell with so little players and server though).

When the player count increases, I expect to see stopwatch be a bit more for high level players than objective mode. Once more modes are introduced, I expect to see a trend of highly skilled players either devoting most of their time to matchmaking, or to stopwatch or other game types. Objective just feels to favor the attacking side. Which is totally fine, it’s a totally different feel than in stopwatch.

Also, do not add a win bonus. Never, ever ever in this game. Not even as a daily task. Don’t do it.

(Humbug) #19

[quote=“triteTongs;18493”]

Also, do not add a win bonus. Never, ever ever in this game. Not even as a daily task. Don’t do it.[/quote]

yep loosing is part of every game and you shouldn’t be punished for it
people seem to get more mad about loosing when winning gives too much of a bonus

(triteTongs) #20

[quote=“triteTongs;18493”]
Also, do not add a win bonus. Never, ever ever in this game. Not even as a daily task. Don’t do it.[/quote]

So apparently win bonuses are already in the game. So much for that.

I proceeded to stack the team for a guaranteed win because I don’t have time to potentially loose two objective games (and get madder in the process). The entire defensive team left and I was able to speedrush the 2nd win again. That’s essentially the meta you bring upon the game with the 'win bonus" dailies.

Don’t give people a reason to stack. Don’t give people a reason to quit a server because they can’t get on the stacked team because KNOW they will lose the next game.