Hiding levels in Pubs

(Szakalot) #21

you only ever hear lvl complaints from people getting rekked

(B_Montiel) #22

Rocket league just added a feature to hide your rank if you want to. I don’t see any drawback with this.

(Haki) #23

Sometimes there’s a Shuffle Teams vote initiated after TWO seconds of the match.
Immediately after somebody complains how many 10+ people are on the other side etc etc.
Then if we start getting our asses kicked, I hear NOTHING from those people, or they even start flaming “lol, high level guy can’t play”(this is said way nicer than they would do it).

It’s just annoying and it doesn’t help.

please remove Lvls !

(HoopleDoople) #24

While players shouldn’t be toxic to one another, I understand their frustration. Matchmaking doesn’t account properly for high level players, so beginners quickly learn that the team with the higher levels is almost always going to win. So if they are facing a high level player they’re going to be mad about their impending loss and flame. But if they are on a team with a high level player they’re going to expect an easy win and flame if they don’t get it.

More important than hiding levels would be fixing matchmaking to account for more than recent win rate in pubs. To give you an example of how this fails, consider what happens to me on almost a daily basis:

I initially focus on finishing missions and earning daily bonuses, which results in me using a weaker squad, not choosing the optimal role for my team, and joining a lot of matches in progress rather than staying in one server (bad teams are most likely to have free spots due to rage quitters). Once these are out of the way I’ll be free to play seriously and be a far more effective player. But if I was on a losing streak prior to this matchmaking will treat me like a bad player and give me a disproportionately strong team, leading to a stomp.

If matchmaking considered both level (or some other metric as an approximation for skill) and recent win rate, it would probably do a much better job. It would also help if every game mode had level capped servers for beginners - even at a mere level 13 I feel out of place in most Execution matches. Finally, team switching should be disabled except when one team is down two or more players. This will prevent high level players from stacking teams in order to play with their friends. Instead a system will have to be put in place to allow players to queue as a group so that matchmaking can actually account for them (there’s a lot of pitfalls that need avoided with such a system, but I won’t go into them here).

(Amerika) #25

Not all the time. I get it right as I join a lobby and sometimes people even quit out before the match starts. It was worse before the more recent sorting change when teams sorted at the start of a lobby. People on the other team a lot of times would just quit because they saw a high account level on the other team. That’s just bad for the game.

(Sir_Slam) #26

What? I would be excited to fight a higher level. It means the match wont be a stomp assuming im not the only one that doesn’t eat paint chips on my team. Well, you know. In theory.

“Bah this is stupid I might actually lose!”

(Izzy) #27

[quote=“HoopleDoople;109144”]While players shouldn’t be toxic to one another, I understand their frustration. Matchmaking doesn’t account properly for high level players, so beginners quickly learn that the team with the higher levels is almost always going to win. So if they are facing a high level player they’re going to be mad about their impending loss and flame. But if they are on a team with a high level player they’re going to expect an easy win and flame if they don’t get it.

More important than hiding levels would be fixing matchmaking to account for more than recent win rate in pubs. To give you an example of how this fails, consider what happens to me on almost a daily basis:

I initially focus on finishing missions and earning daily bonuses, which results in me using a weaker squad, not choosing the optimal role for my team, and joining a lot of matches in progress rather than staying in one server (bad teams are most likely to have free spots due to rage quitters). Once these are out of the way I’ll be free to play seriously and be a far more effective player. But if I was on a losing streak prior to this matchmaking will treat me like a bad player and give me a disproportionately strong team, leading to a stomp.

If matchmaking considered both level (or some other metric as an approximation for skill) and recent win rate, it would probably do a much better job. It would also help if every game mode had level capped servers for beginners - even at a mere level 13 I feel out of place in most Execution matches. Finally, team switching should be disabled except when one team is down two or more players. This will prevent high level players from stacking teams in order to play with their friends. Instead a system will have to be put in place to allow players to queue as a group so that matchmaking can actually account for them (there’s a lot of pitfalls that need avoided with such a system, but I won’t go into them here).[/quote]

In theory, it should be practical, in practice, well…

You forgot a strong aspect: Psychological effects or bias. In theory, I agree with you, but people will still focus on what they see, i.e. the level and the mind has a stronger will than the muscle themselves. There is an easy proof to that: Double blind experiment.

Make three servers: one with the level and score shown, one with only the score shown, one with nothing shown. I am pretty sure that the results would be much closer (less of a stomp) in the last one.

Why do I had the score as well? Simply because seeing a high score will let you infer that you have a really strong player in front. To be honest, I would pay to see some servers with absolutely no score shown before the end of the game. That would be revolutionary, not every game company would risk that, but that might add a lot of benefits, but this is another debate, let’s close the case on this and focus on level.

(SereneFlight) #28

Personally I’ve learned that levels don’t mean that much… if they did, players in min. level 10 servers wouldn’t play like it was their first match.
Also, every once in a while you join a game where one team have ~half of players lvl 15+ while the other team’s levels are something like 5-10 but yet they kick ass.

So… what I do and what I believe people should is to wait and see the composition, how aggressive people are, how they play the merc (does medic play like a medic or assault? Does assault play like assault or recon? etc. etc.) are and how much they focus on objective.
Also if I join mid-game, I look at scoretable and the clock. 12 minutes in the clock and attackers just finished 2nd objective? Yeah, it’s pretty clear that attackers got it… unless it’s Chapel or Trainyard since people tend to have trouble defending when it comes to defusing C4 and stopping EV but not allowing enemy to put the objective in? Bah! Piece of cake.

(MarsRover) #29

[quote=“Abbadon;109057”]Someone posted on Warchest forums

Abbadon
Abaddon
[/quote]

Holy crap. I’ve only been called nolife once. I guess lvl 31 is not enough :wink:

@MissMurder @stayfreshshoe please show this to people in power. You did remove levels in competitive. Please go all the way to stop this nonsense.

(watsyurdeal) #30

Personally I don’t think levels should be shown until the end of a game, not even in a lobby would I show them.

Because it doesn’t do any good, it creates this stigma that “oh this guy has a high level we’re going to lose” or something else that nature. Hide those levels, people will go into a match and just PLAY. Not worrying about levels or whatever but simply just playing and doing what they need to.

Same thing with lower level players, I do not care how low your level is, just do your damn job, and if I have to call you out on it I will.

(Diosito) #31

We can’t “shame” a player for hacking, but we can shame him by his level… good to know…

Abbadon
Abaddon

(Izzy) #32

And I was thinking that I had an unpopular opinion, I am glad to see others share my point of view :slight_smile:

(Armuh) #33

Just teabag and watch em rage.

(retief) #34

Only showing level in the end of game screen seems reasonable to me – I’m not high enough level to get flamed myself, but I’m not sure what showing someone’s level actually adds to the game. I’d almost suggest never showing people’s levels, if only to stop people bitching about high level players on the forums/reddit.

(triteCherry) #35

When I turned level 20 I had someone on my own team repeatedly go “ohhh I’m level 20, ohhhh” everytime I politely gave another person on my team ambushes to watch out for or even say that a sniper was near the gate in Trainwreck. Second most annoying person I’ve heard over voice chat.

Funny thing is I never heard any of this below level 20 now it’s starting to be a regular occurrence.

(Ctrix) #36

90% of the time I mute a person talking on voice chat immediately. It hurts my brain.

(Diosito) #37

I firmly believe that ranks avoid these situations, for example, in Wolfenstein: ET I was never Bullied by having the highest possible rank (four-star General if I remember correctly), or in Quake Wars for being a Supreme Commander.

Maybe in comp levels could work…

Abbadon
Abaddon

(GiantGiant) #38

http://i.imgur.com/kq63yfr.png?1
(And if I changed team, it wouldn’t be difference)

Happened yesterday. It was not first time and I’m sure not the last one. Hiding levels would be nice, since people often changes teams to play with higher levels. Maybe replace level with some interresting/funny/wise title got by completing some special missions/taking part in events or even in store for $$?

(Ctrix) #39

Sure feels nice doesn’t it.

Negative. Battlefield 3 had the rank system and people constantly gave you shit for being Commander rank. There was even a meme about shit-buckets from an animation that people would call them. (“Do you go to the toilet? You’re playing the game wrong. You go to the bathroom, you’re not playing Battlefield. You shit in a bucket, you’re playing Battlefield”)

(ThiagoJaqueta) #40

I agree, specially because Level in this game doesn’t mean anything.

Example:

Look, the worst player of my team had the highest level
And on the other team there was another player which had almost the same level as me and didn’t performed as well.
Also, the best players on the other team had low level as well.

I think that the level should be hidden if it’s Higher than X, and then show on the scoreboard >15 or something like that.