My Proposal for a Better DB:

#1

I decided to make this because there has been a lot of talk recently about casual matchmaking and the direction (or lack of direction) that SD is taking the game regarding server browsing, ranked, casual, execution removal, and so on. Spent the past 20 minutes or so brainstorming what I believe would be an ideal approach to all of this so do take it with a grain of salt. Feel free to discuss below or expand on my thoughts.

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Ranked:

  • Is beautiful and wonderful and golden. Leave it as is in terms of the matchmaking. That said, give us more incentives to do ranked and more penalties for sissies that repeatedly quit ranked matches. Wipe their ranked points out after ‘x’ consecutive quits. Anything. Moving on.

Casual Unranked:

  • Make a better name for it if you want. As it stands currently, the aim of casual seems to be a regular game with slightly better balance via matchmaking and a fresh feel with that new UI. That’s fine, but there is absolutely nothin’ quick, easy, or casual about it. Leave it as objective, let people who want to queue up do so if they’d like, and reduce it to a 5v5 from 6v6 so it’s essentially a shorter ranked with only one turn defending or attacking. This and ranked shall remain the only 2 options for people who are willing to wait to be placed in what the system perceives as a more balanced game. These 2 modes will stand as the competitive core of DB for practicing and serious play.

Custom:

  • This will be for when we’re able to rent servers and presumably - hopefully - be able to browse them. They could be set privately or publicly and we should have a lot of control over their options. The ability to set a map rotation, the game mode, weapon and merc restrictions, the amount of players on each team, etc. I mentioned it the other day and I would love to see execution return via rentable servers. I would be willing to pay money for it, I believe others would play and do the same, and it’d be absolutely no expense to SD unless I’m missing something here. I believe the code for the maps and mode and all of that fun stuff is already in the game and I see no reason why this functionality couldn’t exist without any cost on their end. Someone more knowledgeable with game development and coding could expand on this if I’m wrong or right.

Friends:

  • An all-in-one utility to see what your buddies are up to. Options to join their matches or create a party with them, see their current ranks and levels, maybe add the loadout trading menus (assuming we ever get somethin’ like that) in here, and so on. Just a fun little quirky way to quickly interact with your friends. See their favorite merc, quantity of badges unlocked, a little catchphrase, equipped trinket or trinkets owned, whatever. Who cares. Just make it fun and clean.

Quick Match / Server Browser:

  • You click quick match and then you’re prompted with stopwatch or objective. You’d then be prompted with a 6v6, 7v7, or 8v8 preference. Region restrictions and whatever else you’d like can be set. No matchmaking, just click twice and you’re in this. The standard server browser could be viewable from this menu as well if you prefer to see who is in the lobby or simply want that old look back. The ability to see how long a match has been in progress would be nice as well.

Voila. Hire me, SD. I just fixed your game. Y’all have any thoughts?

(woodchip) #2

I like this idea a lot. Turning CMM into an objective mode ranked that gives ranked points & rewards but no ranking would be good. If the player base was large enough to support it.

#3

@woodchip said:
I like this idea a lot. Turning CMM into an objective mode ranked that gives ranked points & rewards but no ranking would be good. If the player base was large enough to support it.

That’s interesting too, but I’m not sure I’d want the points to be rewarded outside of ranked despite some people viewing casual as ranked light. Yeah though, alternative rewards and incentives for both would be cool. A matchmaking system cannot work without the activity and playerbase to support it.

(hawkeyeguy99) #4

I like this idea a lot too. I’d be down for pretty much anything that makes the game more chill than it is now. It’s too much right now on the competitive side for my tastes. Not interested in that.

(Press E) #5

I stopped reading after ranked tbh.
I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: ranking as it is has very little meaning.
Because ranked is based on whether you win or lose instead of personal performance, whether you rank up or down is largely based on your luck with matchmaking, and whether or not you get placed in a server with a competent team.

This is a game, it’s supposed to be fun. Rather than pay people to play ranked, make them actually enjoy playing ranked. Make them feel that their own skill matters, make them feel that they aren’t just carrying level 7 vassilis half the time and won’t lose a rank because of that.
Sure, punish the shit out of leavers. But what will that actually accomplish? No matter what, you’re never going to stop 100% of leavers. Why is this? Well, ignoring the fact that some people just don’t care, people actually have lives. There are valid reasons to leave a ranked match, be it an emergency or a simple technical issue with the game or the person’s hardware. I’ve been disconnected randomly from a game more than once and given no option to rejoin. Yes, it’s annoying to have someone leave. But rather than punish the shit out of them for something they might not be able to avoid, rework matchmaking so a leaver doesn’t always mean a derank.

TL;DR, this is a game, not a job. People should enjoy playing ranked without having to be paid with skins to do it. People leave for a lot of reasons, it’s not always their fault, and you can’t stop them with all the punishments in the world. Matchmaking needs to be reworked to be based around personal skill, not that of your team. It works great for a fixed team, but that’s not what DB is. And having your rank be based on the luck of who you happened to be paired with is just stupid.

#6

@STARRYSOCK said:
I stopped reading after ranked tbh.
I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: ranking as it is has very little meaning.
Because ranked is based on whether you win or lose instead of personal performance, whether you rank up or down is largely based on your luck with matchmaking, and whether or not you get placed in a server with a competent team.

This is a game, it’s supposed to be fun. Rather than pay people to play ranked, make them actually enjoy playing ranked. Make them feel that their own skill matters, make them feel that they aren’t just carrying level 7 vassilis half the time and won’t lose a rank because of that.

I don’t disagree with any of that and these are the types of implementations I support when I say “give us more incentives” to do ranked. I stated that it’s fine as is because this thread is more or less just about the matchmaking, the UI, and overall functionality or ‘playability’ of the game. I don’t think much else needs to change for ranked in that regard because they’ve been gradually improving it after each season. Here’s to hoping a new points system will come around, too. Anyway though, I feel the game is having a bit of an identity crisis with all of the shuffling game modes, # of players in said game modes being changed, server browsing, etc. They can’t seem to decide what they’re aiming for.

Sure, punish the @$!# out of leavers. But what will that actually accomplish? No matter what, you’re never going to stop 100% of leavers. Why is this? Well, ignoring the fact that some people just don’t care, people actually have lives. There are valid reasons to leave a ranked match, be it an emergency or a simple technical issue with the game or the person’s hardware. I’ve been disconnected randomly from a game more than once and given no option to rejoin. Yes, it’s annoying to have someone leave. But rather than punish the @$!# out of them for something they might not be able to avoid, rework matchmaking so a leaver doesn’t always mean a derank.

TL;DR, this is a game, not a job. People should enjoy playing ranked without having to be paid with skins to do it. People leave for a lot of reasons, it’s not always their fault, and you can’t stop them with all the punishments in the world. Matchmaking needs to be reworked to be based around personal skill, not that of your team. It works great for a fixed team, but that’s not what DB is. And having your rank be based on the luck of who you happened to be paired with is just stupid.

To clarify, I don’t disagree with any of this either and that’s why I said punishments after ‘x’ amount of quits. I’m aware that people have lives, disconnections happen, and things come up. Happens for me a lot and I acknowledge it’d be ruthless to throw down heavy punishments for innocent, unfortunate mishaps. I was thinking something along the lines of, say, 3 consecutive back-to-back quits, 5 in one day, repeated inactivity, or excessive team killing would warrant some sort of additional penalty. You get the gist. The reason why I feel this would be beneficial is due to the problems you and I both agree on. Without more incentives to do ranked, people will not participate or take it seriously. I have seen many people openly admit they only continue playin’ a match if they can tell their team will win definitively for those 50 points. If not, they’ll leave the match or go watch some videos for a while and tank that 10 point loss. It’s a problem.

In summary, I just gave an overview of the way I believe the game should be organized and played. Casual was a missed opportunity, removing exec was disappointing but I suppose understandable, and tweaking the server browser and potential plans to remove 8v8 or others is questionable at best. It’s an inconsistent mess.

(kittz0r) #7

so you want Rewards for doin basically nothing? yea sure

(Outblast) #8

Is there is a rematch option in ccm? Would love to be able to play a rematch of a close game without the wait for matchmaking and a chance of getting a bad balance.

#9

@Outblast said:
Is there is a rematch option in ccm? Would love to be able to play a rematch of a close game without the wait for matchmaking and a chance of getting a bad balance.
Love this idea too. Hope we get that option one day.

@kittz0r Directed at me?

(bgyoshi) #10

Good idea that could use tweaking.

UI complaints aside (like why put a Friends tab on the Play screen instead of in the main menu UI) there’s only one thing that doesn’t make much sense.

Server browser (Custom) AND (Unranked) Casual AND Ranked doesn’t make much sense like this.

Unranked can’t be sorta ranked but not ranked without ranking. It should be Ranked without Ranking. 5v5 FF On Collision On, but you can choose your mode (Stopwatch OR Objective). When choosing to play, you should get a choice to join an existing game (official DB servers only, list like the server browser showing open games) or join the queue for a new game.

Custom games should be custom games. Community servers only, no official servers. If you want standard DB, go to Unranked or Ranked. If you want 7v7/8v8 DB, crazy rules, 24/7 map rotation, nonstandard merc limits, go to a custom server.

We need more threads like this instead of the standard “DB sucks i hate it” posts that certain few are making right now.