Let's try to solve the 2v1 problem in Dirty Bomb

(K1X455) #1

Foreword:

Inherent to UE3’s game system, you can literally jump in an ongoing Team vs Team match and pitch in your skills and abilities for the team. It’s great in an uneven start of a match where you can be the player that balances team numbers however, it becomes a problem when the teams are evenly matched an your participation can upset the balance, specifically if the defending team gets the upper hand and the burden of offence becomes shorthanded.

This also happens quite often at start of a match where there is an odd number of players (say, 11 players on a 6v6 server). The team with higher player count has statistically higher chances of success against the team with less. Like I said, the defensive advantage is more pronounced if the attacking team is down by at least a single player. More often than most, I see players abandoning matches when it dawns upon them that they are up against a numerically superior defence.

So I ask the question, what can be done?

(kopyright) #2

If I remember correctly either SW or Ranked changed respawn timers according to the number of players on a team, e.g. the team with less players will spawn faster to make up for its lack in numbers. This would however mean that you never know when the enemy team spawns unless DB would add a second timer to keep track of (though you can already notice from the enemy’s portraits on the upper edge of the screen).

(noonenew) #3

No. ranked never shortened respawn timers and I’m sure of this. However I’m not so sure about stopwatch. it may have happened but I know for a fact that it doesn’t now. the way I would solve it would be to add a bot ai if possible. However I have no idea if this is possible so there are a few other options. You could shorten things like ability cooldown and increase the healing power/ammo giving power of the support roles. When you mention the defender bias another thing to take into account is that spawn camping on defence is a lot easier. I think that spawn shield shouldn’t last any longer but player should do double bullet damage when in spawn shield. this sounds potent but it should be as it puts people off of spawn camping

(Press E) #4

I don’t think much could be done, and I don’t really think anything should. These are just public matches after all, and doing anything like queuing players trying to join or whatever would ruin the pub atmosphere.

Being one man down doesn’t really matter when your team composition is all over the place too, with a few level 100s, some level 5s and a level 500. Unless another player leaves, it’s usually fine since it only takes around 30 seconds for a new player to rejoin anyways. Not to mention the more players in a server, the less it actually affects a match.

I would like to see a rework on who gets placed on what side though. Sometimes you can have a 5v5 match where one team is dominating the other, and DB will join a player onto the dominating team rather than the one that actually needs it. I’ve also seen DB stack a high level player onto an already high level team too, which obviously doesn’t help.

(Jigstraw) #5

That’s because when a player joins a match-in-progress, the teams aren’t reshuffled, and the player joining after the shuffle at the beginning of the match/at the end of the previous match is not subject to any checks or balances.

This is all just an inherent flaw of having A: no matchmaking whatsoever and B: a small playerbase.

They COULD try to put some kind of algorithm in Quickjoin to help create more balanced matches by looking at the match history of any particular player and choosing a server for them based on how they compare to other players in whatever servers have open slots, but the fact that 70% of players use the server browser throws a huge wrench into the gears. But they can’t solve that problem by removing the server browser, because then there would be no way for people to play on the same server as their friends without getting lucky, or creating an entirely new party system. I wouldn’t like that anyway, as parties tend to communicate or at least have some level of familiarity with each others playstyles or have past experience in teamplay, which gives them an unfair advantage over anyone they play against that isn’t in an equally sized or larger party, and dirty bomb just doesn’t have the playerbase to sustain a system where parties only play against other parties. That was my biggest complaint with CMM for the brief period that we had it. Getting put against the same fucking 6 stack multiple matches in a row and getting shitstomped every single time, because you’re solo queueing it and they’re working together like a well-oiled machine, setting up crossfires and organizing team composition and what have you.

Honestly the best thing they could do for the health of the game, even if it would make some players unhappy, is reinstating casual matchmaking, but without the party system. The whole thing would become much more effective and a lot easier to manage if it was restricted to solo-queues playing against solo queues. People can party up in faceit matches, but i think casual should shield players from the incredibly unfair odds that occur when a group of similarly skilled friends play together.

The only other notable change i’d like to see in casual matchmaking is a “rematch” button for when you have a good, fun, balanced match against another team, and would like to play them again, instead of being kicked back to the lobby to search for a new match. it could be a vote and require like, 8-10 votes to pass, effectively a majority across the whole server assuming 6v6 matches

(Teflon Love) #6

Even if I join a 5vs5 match with the server browser some algorithm could move me to the side that’s more in need of support.

(Jigstraw) #7

I think i was more talking about players of varying skill levels being in the same match. there’s no real filter in place that stops a level 1 player from joining a match with level 400-800 players, where the level one REALLY isn’t going to have a good time, so they leave the match and create the uneven teams problem.