Do We Really Want Casual Matchmaking?

(M4st0d0n) #41

Yup. Ranked games I played were balanced. They could manage to do casual just right as well. Cant hurt player retention neither. Lots of streamers are so sorry they have to stomp eight years old on their 2PM video, now I guess they’ll have to smurf for that.

(blonk) #42

Had to think for a long time before casting my vote, but I can’t see how a flourishing variety of community-run servers can exist besides this MM system being SD’s priority. If they can explain how the rest of the picture will look and the future for the server browser I may feel better about it, but for now it’s not the direction I was hoping things to go.

(Dawnlazy) #43

No. Browsing through servers is precisely one of the things that makes PC gaming superior. It’s been like this since the dawn of FPS and it shouldn’t change. Instead we should get community servers.

(MarsRover) #44

I agree that SD’s priorities aren’t the same as experienced players on this forum, but this is not an either-or situation. Last I heard server browser is NOT being ripped out of the game. precisely to used for community servers. And since it’s staying, I wouldn’t mind some other servers with crazy rules - 8v8 with FF etc. Meanwhile MM should make pubs better for everyone. It can’t make it worse than total randomness that server broser is.

(Twoiko) #45

As long as the server browser is still an option, MM pubs can only improve things compared to their shitty quickjoin and lack of balancing.

Now if only we could get community servers.

(OmaGretel) #46

I don’t know what people expect the new system to change. The current system already “balances” the teams by ELO rating. They will most likely use the exact same rating for MM. It is not going to change anything, except prevent joiners, leavers and team switchers mid-game. And it will make you wait before it finds a match for you.
Look at the recent updates. The devs have always taken the minimum effort way to “fix” things. MM will just find any 10-14 players and try its best to fit them together into 2 teams of kinda equal ELO rating. That’s it. There will be just as much spawncamping as there has always been, until they force (or at least encourage) people to pick mercs that the team currently needs.

(Kakutov) #47

Yes.
Most of the matches are unfair. I don’t think casual matchmaking could make it worse.

(katohan) #48

Yes, because this current system is horrible with all the glory hunting and stacking one side. I would add some ticking counter that removes your points in stopwatch if you backpedal as the attacking side. That or “we wanna lose” button to save 10-15min.

(SereneFlight) #49

Considering how wonderful Quick Join is… no.

(redruMfloW) #50

Matchmaking is one of the reasons of the failure on PC of COD MW2, Titanfall, Battlefront …
We are on PC the server browser is vital

The actual system is supposed to balance teams between matches based on the score/min and giving it more importance if you stay on the same server.
This looks fair and functional but in fact it’s completely broken even if nobody quits between matches.

Looking at how this “simple” balance between matches is f*cked imagine a matchmaking based on this kind of algorithm, even a vote shuffle on an average match can lead to roflstomp and spawncamp.

Before implementing matchmaking reinforce the shuffle in lobby.
In game make the vote shuffle easier to achieve based on the progression of the match
If after 6 minutes the first objective isn’t complete give a virtual +1 to the vote, +2 at 8 minutes …
Same rule if a stopwatch first round has been completed in less than 5 minutes -> +2

(MarsRover) #51

That “simple balance between matches is fucked” precisely because it can only choose between those 12-16 people on the server.

Seriously people, arguing that casual MM will be broken because Quick Join and Server Browser do matchmaking poorly is missing the point by light years. The first one doesn’t do any matchmaking, the second one is so limited that has barely any.

And honestly, I don’t know what do you expect. Team composition, adjusting (or more often NOT adjusting) strategy, changing mercs, plain luck, current player dispostion - there are multiple things that influence the outcome of a match. You can’t really account for those in a satisfactory degree. In my experience it’s bad team composition and quitters (including those in lobby after teams are assinged) that are the top 2 reasons a game is a stomp. Not bad balance. I’m talking only about Objective, because Stopwatch has the old lobby system.

(B_Montiel) #52

That “simple balance between matches is @$!#” precisely because it can only choose between those 12-16 people on the server.

Seriously people, arguing that casual MM will be broken because Quick Join and Server Browser do matchmaking poorly is missing the point by light years. The first one doesn’t do any matchmaking, the second one is so limited that has barely any.

And honestly, I don’t know what do you expect. Team composition, adjusting (or more often NOT adjusting) strategy, changing mercs, plain luck, current player dispostion - there are multiple things that influence the outcome of a match. You can’t really account for those in a satisfactory degree. In my experience it’s bad team composition and quitters (including those in lobby after teams are assinged) that are the top 2 reasons a game is a stomp. Not bad balance. I’m talking only about Objective, because Stopwatch has the old lobby system.
[/quote]

I can already forecast the usual scenario in public mm soloqueue :

  1. Wait 2-3 minutes to find a game
  2. Witness half of your teammates select unappropriate mercs for the map, with no engineer in their roaster, while you have a 2 medic + support setup. Wait for the remaining lobby time.
  3. Start the game
  4. Your team get stomped at objective because there’s no engineer in your team and could not arm the bomb in time.
  5. The retarded phantom dude (who also have vassili and red eye in his roaster) says : “No engineer wtf noob team.”
  6. The same dude gets pwnt by sniper 10m after leaving spawn. He ragequits in tears.
  7. Wait for the final abandon timer to leave because the other 3 guys don’t want to surrender. Of course, no one can take his place back because you’re in public mm.

Result : No fun and 15 minutes totally wasted.
And this scenario is already usual on ranked, and part of the cancer that ruined it. So that’d be preposterous to think it will be a lesser problem on public mm. All those retarded leavers totally know there’s a penalty by the way. They just don’t give a fuck about the game and their teammates.

About balance, on top of the fact that there’s less players in dirty bomb than in other game where matchmaking is used (a massive problem on its own), there’s also skill differences directly linked to merc selection of players. In this game, you can be great with some mercs and total trash with others. Your average K/D, xp/min will mainly depend on the merc you’ve played the most with, which are generally the ones you’re the best with. Take some others mercs, your rating is totally biased compared to what you’re actually capable of. So, imo, there’s no easy way to balance players in this game. All the work they already did and the work they’ll do in this field is pretty much pointless outside ranked (played in a serious manner at least). The only way : turn the general public “elo” ranking per player into a specific elo ranking for each merc. Do the average of the selected mercs and scramble afterwards. For public game, this might be more precise.

(ProfPlump) #53

[quote=“wolvie;28749”]So we’ve been told they are implementing casual matchmaking. For those of you who don’t know what that is, we are pretty Mich going to have to que for a public match, and there will be penalties for leaving said joined public match.

I for one, am not looking forward to public matchmaking. I like the drop in drop out position. Then again I do see why people want this matchmaking. Balance should, in theory, improve greatly. Maybe this will actually male new players have a better impression of the game and we can start retaining new players. But, I really don’t like the idea of being penalized for leaving. As that will fix the “problem” of leavers it also takes away our freedom of a public game. I am someone who has learned not to care whether or not I win pubs so I don’t rage if I have a terrible team that often. So I really don’t have an issue with team balance. If I had an issue with team balance I might be for public matchmaking.[/quote]

I’m looking forward to it, but I hope the penalties for leaving aren’t too extreme, but do still discourage team abandoning. I do like the idea of competitive gaming in Dirty Bomb being more encouraged.

(ImSploosh) #54

[quote=“B. Montiel;177383”]Totally against it, considering all the features they are going to need, and what is similar in the current game we know :

  • Matchmaking system : Already existing for ranked, it does not work as intended
  • Scrambling system : Already existing for public games, it does not work as intended
    [/quote]

Woah, let me stop you right there… It all works as intended.:wink:

(CCP115) #55

Here’s the thing:

Casual matchmaking will just kill DB more. A pub is a pub, that’s where people start the game, learn the game, and spent most of their time. If an organized scenario with communication is what you want, go play comp.

“But nobody plays ranked!” I hear you say. Good point. Adding casual matchmaking would just kill this more. If ranked ever gets popular enough, then casual matchmaking becomes 100% redundant.

(AConfusedAlpaca) #56

I’d rather keep this system away, put simply the player base in Australia / New Zealand just isn’t big enough yet to support it, most player are either low-skill cap or high-skill cap at the moment there are too few middle-skill cap to sustain this sort of matchmaking.

(NetflixandKill) #57

What we really need is not casual matchmaking, but a working team balancing algorithm., and have the teams be balanced from the start of the match, and have late joiners be assigned to the correct team.