Playing with friends - The struggle.

(Jurmabones) #101

“And like Szakalot said, you can twist it any way you want - 30% love it and 70% are at least OK with it.”
First of all that’s absolutely wrong. 30% hate it and 70% are at least okay with it. Moving on now that we’ve corrected that massive error in your statement…

You think it’s normal for a third of the community–assuming the poll is at all a valid sample–to hate the new lobby system? (You can’t argue only the “hate it” option is an inaccurate representation but then pretend all the people who are indifferent or like it can suddenly be an accurate representation of 70% of the community liking it.)

On top of that, most of the people saying they hate it, hate it because you can’t play with friends. So for every person posting about that issue, there’s however many of their friends NOT posting about it that obviously hate the change too.

You can’t perceive any possible issue with that?

(MarsRover) #102

[quote=“Jurmabones;87305”]“And like Szakalot said, you can twist it any way you want - 30% love it and 70% are at least OK with it.”
First of all that’s absolutely wrong. 30% hate it and 70% are at least okay with it. Moving on now that we’ve corrected that massive error in your statement…[/quote]
30% love
30% love + 40% meh = 70% at least OK with it.
Stop reading what you want from simple statements. Now that we’ve corrected that massive error in your reading comprehension…

[quote=“Jurmabones;87305”]You think it’s normal for a third of the community–assuming the poll is at all a valid sample–to hate the new lobby system? (You can’t argue only the “hate it” option is an inaccurate representation but then pretend all the people who are indifferent or like it can suddenly be an accurate representation of 70% of the community liking it.)

On top of that, most of the people saying they hate it, hate it because you can’t play with friends. So for every person posting about that issue, there’s however many of their friends NOT posting about it that obviously hate the change too.

You can’t perceive any possible issue with that?[/quote]

I’m not gonna run in circles with discussion. I will refer you to my previous post.

(Jurmabones) #103

So you are purposely excluding the 30% who hate it to twist the discussion in a meaningless direction that ignores the most opinionated and vocal segment of opinion on the new lobby system. Lmao

k bro

(MarsRover) #104

[quote=“Jurmabones;87311”]So you are purposely excluding the 30% who hate it to twist the discussion in a meaningless direction that ignores the most opinionated and vocal segment of opinion on the new lobby system. Lmao

k bro[/quote]

If that’s what you read in my last posts then I’m sorry. I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.

(Jurmabones) #105

All you’re bringing up or talking about is that 70% of the people who voted are at least okay with it. That’s fine because that’s more or less true. But I asked you specifically, you don’t perceive any issue with 30% of people hating it?

You ignored the question and said you aren’t going to “run in circles with discussion.” The thing is you’re avoiding any real discussion because all you are doing is trying to bring up the parts of the poll that agree with or are indifferent to the new lobby system.

How about you start with simply answering questions addressed to you instead of dodging them then pretending there’s some massive issue of misunderstanding?

(MarsRover) #106

[quote=“Jurmabones;87317”]All you’re bringing up or talking about is that 70% of the people who voted are at least okay with it. That’s fine because that’s more or less true. But I asked you specifically, you don’t perceive any issue with 30% of people hating it?

You ignored the question and said you aren’t going to “run in circles with discussion.” The thing is you’re avoiding any real discussion because all you are doing is trying to bring up the parts of the poll that agree with or are indifferent to the new lobby system.

How about you start with simply answering questions addressed to you instead of dodging them then pretending there’s some massive issue of misunderstanding?[/quote]

Of course I perceive an issue. But for me the best solution is not a rollback to the old lobby system where games had shitty balance. There was no party system, switching teams to play with friends was a PITA. We need something that actively supports parties and accounts for them when balancing. That’s what I wrote 3 posts above this one. That’s why I said I’m not going to repeat myself. Which I just did :slight_smile:

And you really need that chill pill. DB is very much work in progress, not feature complete. SD has showed a few times already that often their philosophy is “change first, ask questions later”. Which is crappy when it touches such major systems.

(Jurmabones) #107

How do you balance casual pubs that anyone can join or quit at any time? Where level, skill, etc. are all open and uncontrolled?

Personally I still regularly see stomps, spawn camping, zero-plant offenses, etc. It’s not like forcing people into a lobby where they can’t do anything to choose their team, can’t know what side they’re on and can’t know what their teammates will have for a loadout until the match is about to start somehow changes the fact that skill can vary widely in pubs.

(MarsRover) #108

Certainly not by throwing your arms up saying it can’t be done and telling everyone to stop complaining :slight_smile:

  1. Assign to teams as late as possible. Ideally just before the mission briefing.
  2. When teams are even and a new person joins in, assign them based on ELO, not always to attackers like it’s now
  3. Autobalance when teams are uneven by more than 1 person. There are many rules with which you can balance inconvenience with effectiveness, and in my opinion it should sacrifice effectiveness for convenience.
  4. Make quick join more intelligent instead of just throwing into almost a random server like it does now
  5. Maybe add merc levels, which combined with player ELO will give a more accurate representation of their skill. Merc levels should be capped reasonably low, it is mainly for detecting someone who is still learning to play the merc
  6. …and many other thing that I can’t think of on the spot, but people in SD get paid for :slight_smile: This is not rocket science. This is a thing studied for decades now.

You will never achieve perfect balance with random 12-16 people that drop in and drop out. But the current system works pretty well, and these are relatively minor improvements in terms of cost, compared to a full fledged MM with no server browser.

(Jurmabones) #109

Let’s not waste time with unclever embellishments like “throwing up your arms” as if we’re all freaking out and physically lashing out at people’s posts. It doesn’t make your point any stronger and it’s just trite garbage people use as a crutch to a lack of humor and lack of argument. Besides which, you’re part of the crowd insisting all the people who dislike the new lobby system should stop complaining and accept it because it supposedly balances out pubs. (Which I haven’t noticed it do at all–I still regularly spawn camp and see people whining about bad team balance in chat. I still regularly see tons of people rage quit out of the same team at the end of a round.)

[quote=“MarsRover;87336”]1. Assign to teams as late as possible. Ideally just before the mission briefing.[/quote] Why is it ideal to assign people as late as possible? Giving people no time to prepare their loadouts to work with teammates doesn’t make sense and seems the opposite of ideal. How does this do anything to improve balance? It makes for no chance to change your mercs according to what your teammates have chosen is the biggest problem I see with it.

[quote=“MarsRover;87336”]2. When teams are even and a new person joins in, assign them based on ELO, not always to attackers like it’s now[/quote] Okay. Agreed.

[quote=“MarsRover;87336”]
3. Autobalance when teams are uneven by more than 1 person. There are many rules with which you can balance inconvenience with effectiveness, and in my opinion it should sacrifice effectiveness for convenience.[/quote]Okay.

[quote=“MarsRover;87336”]4. Make quick join more intelligent instead of just throwing into almost a random server like it does now[/quote]Okay.

[quote=“MarsRover;87336”]5. Maybe add merc levels, which combined with player ELO will give a more accurate representation of their skill. Merc levels should be capped reasonably low, it is mainly for detecting someone who is still learning to play the merc[/quote] I don’t like the idea of levels at all. I mean, as an individual stat tracking type thing I would like that, but as far as visible on servers, it’d be no different to the discrimination and complaining going on about account levels.

[quote=“MarsRover;87336”]6. …and many other thing that I can’t think of on the spot, but people in SD get paid for :slight_smile: This is not rocket science. This is a thing studied for decades now.[/quote]All of those things you mentioned are improvements or changes that could be implemented independently of and have nothing to do with the new lobby system. They also don’t address the fact of the shortcomings of the new lobby system which is what this thread is actually about, so I’m not sure what any of it has to do with you supporting the new lobby system.

[quote=“MarsRover;87336”]You will never achieve perfect balance with random 12-16 people that drop in and drop out.[/quote]Which is the point people who hate it are trying to make. You can’t achieve perfect balance, so why prevent people from playing with friends in supposedly casual pubs for the sake of balance? Especially when they could do some of those things you listed above rather than adding a new system that prevents friends from playing together and doesn’t actually do anything different for balancing out teams than it did pre-patch, besides prevent people from swapping teams during the lobby, which could only occur from having fewer people on one team–something people have no control over because it’s based on others deciding to leave the server.

People with high level or who use mics or play with any friends or do anything besides mindlessly run around playing tdm are tryhards and get harassed by bad players because they just want to play for fun and don’t care about how to play better and win. So we’re forced to play in a new lobby system with the supposed and stated purpose of balancing out objective pubs (which can’t be truly be accomplished anyways) but whose actual effect is preventing friends from playing together and making a huge possibility of extremely poor merc synergy within a team. And this is all for the sake of appeasing people who apparently don’t even care about winning in the first place. Seriously? How does this make any sense to anyone?

(MarsRover) #110

The old system assigned teams right after going into the lobby. Then some people left, some other joined and were assigned not by ELO but to the smaller team. The end result is basically random. The few people that remained on server are divided by ELO, but the rest is not. Dividing at the last possible moment fixes that.

While it is not ideal that you won’t know what side you are on, it’s a minor problem compared to the benefits. Also the main mode for this game should be Stopwach, where you have the same mercs for both halves.

Yeah, I meant it to be hidden like ideally the overall level should be. But I’m also just spitballing with this idea, it very well may have negligible impact for the resources it would require to make.

But point 1) is precisely what they did!

Instead of demanding to go back to the shitty non-existent RNG balance, SD should add some sort of party system to pubs. I wrote this at least 3 times in all the threads about the new lobby. So please stop saying that I tell people to shut up and accept the the system as is.

But please don’t ask me how such system should work, ok? :slight_smile:

Dude, you go into multiple threads and write stuff like this: “You can’t control who joins pubs, so there’s no way to control team balance.”. And in this post you said that you can’t achieve perfect balance, so why even try. What is it if not what I describe it as?

There is no such thing as perfect balance. We can only try to get as close as possible. Saying we can’t do a reasonably good job is false. But if that’s what you base your arguments on, then nothing I say will convince you.

(triteTongs) #111

I DO GET IT. BECAUSE I’M PLAYING THE VIDEO GAME.

I am a player in this video game and I can tell you most of all the matches are imbalanced because I join, regardless of the side because of my experience in this game.

The only time it’s ACTUALLY BALANCED is when a RANDOM high level, high skilled player RANDOMLY CLICKS the server I’m in and gets placed on the OTHER team.

[quote=“MarsRover;87336”]
3. Autobalance when teams are uneven by more than 1 person. There are many rules with which you can balance inconvenience with effectiveness, and in my opinion it should sacrifice effectiveness for convenience.
4. Make quick join more intelligent instead of just throwing into almost a random server like it does now

You will never achieve perfect balance with random 12-16 people that drop in and drop out. But the current system works pretty well, and these are relatively minor improvements in terms of cost, compared to a full fledged MM with no server browser.[/quote]

Point 3 wont work. Reason:

[quote=“triteTongs;87118”]
I just got out of a game where I switched teams in a stopwatch to help fight against a slaughter. The team that I switched from called me out and got pissed at me. Since the pubstomped team is now doing the pubstomping. They were legitimately angry at me for attempting to rebalance the teams.

The only variable that changed was me switching teams.

How can the game even balance when I’m the deciding factor in a win against lower level players?

It can’t. Without a system funneling another similar skilled player for me to fight against… it’s ALWAYS going to be imbalanced. No matter what kind of server-based balance no-friends system get’s built… [/quote]
You’d be switching people BACK AND FORTH, because everyone quits mid-game.

Agree with point 4, and point 5 .

That’s all I want. Quick join to actually be workable matchmaking, linked with a party system. Have parties face other parties and attempt to funnel skilled players against other skilled players into the same server.

I don’t care if they keep the server browser, but the server browser should first show the results of what matchmaking WOULD have found as the optimal servers to join.

(MarsRover) #112

[quote=“triteTongs;87406”]
Point 3 wont work. Reason:

My point 3 was just about making teams even in size, 6v4 -> 5v5 etc. Maybe I shouldn’t have used the word balance in that context. And to be clear, it absolutely wouldn’t switch a player with the most XP to another team. Involuntary switch would be massively frustrating when you work hard for your team.

The situation you describe when there’s only one high skill player on the whole server, and he is enough to tip the scales either way is indeed unfixable without MM. From my pub experience such a game happens maybe once a day, and I play about 3h per day. Unless of course that player is you, so I understand your frustration.

(Szakalot) #113

[quote=“Jurmabones;87349”]

Its simple. You want to assign teams at a point when nobody will leave, and as little as possible new players will join.

The only way to properly balance the teams would be when nobody is shuffling anymore. If nobody ever left/joined mid-game, the original balance could work.

If you shuffle at the beginning of lobby (like it was pre-patch), any person joining/leaving will screw up the balance. Which is what happened. Over and over again.

And sure, there are a few stomps here and there, but on average, its a lot better than it was before. Just because you don’t like the change due to forced team’s, doesn’t mean the idea of balancing doesn’t work.

Before patch it would be uncommon to have an actual balanced game. Now it is uncommon to have a completely one-sided stomp.

(Halosheep) #114

[quote=“Szakalot;87424”]
And sure, there are a few stomps here and there, but on average, its a lot better than it was before. Just because you don’t like the change due to forced team’s, doesn’t mean the idea of balancing doesn’t work.

Before patch it would be uncommon to have an actual balanced game. Now it is uncommon to have a completely one-sided stomp.[/quote]

I have yet to experience this. I either lose because autobalance places a bunch of incompetent players on my team and I’m not capable of carrying that hard, or I win because it decided that I was allowed to have one or two of the other good players in the lobby. This game is inherently unbalanced by player skill, and forcing me to play against my friends is not helping it. If you would like I can record the ending of my next 10 games and see how often I see the words “the teams were well balanced”.

(Szakalot) #115

[quote=“triteTongs;87406”][quote=“Szakalot;87228”]
you don’t get it.
[/quote]

I DO GET IT. BECAUSE I’M PLAYING THE VIDEO GAME.

I am a player in this video game and I can tell you most of all the matches are imbalanced because I join, regardless of the side because of my experience in this game.

The only time it’s ACTUALLY BALANCED is when a RANDOM high level, high skilled player RANDOMLY CLICKS the server I’m in and gets placed on the OTHER team.
[/quote]

makes sense if you join mid-game. If a game was started, and you are as good as you say; the system would pack you up with the 7 worst players on the server. Unless you can carry 1v8, this will not turn up good for you, at least not as a perfect smash. Admittedly this is less of an issue at 12-player servers (where having one high-level player in a team makes a bigger difference than the 8v8 spamfests).

Dunno how good you are, and what servers you’re playing on, so its all hard to judge.

I would definitely experience the same BEFORE the patch. Any non-minlvl10 server would be a one-sided stomp, whichever side I’m playing on (hell, minlvl10 servers often end up this way, unless there is another high level player on the server)

Don’t let this idea get to your head. Switching teams to balance is not easy as the best player on the server cause having a player and not having a player in the enemy team is two-best player’s worth of power.

(Jurmabones) #116

[quote=“Halosheep;87475”][quote=“Szakalot;87424”]
And sure, there are a few stomps here and there, but on average, its a lot better than it was before. Just because you don’t like the change due to forced team’s, doesn’t mean the idea of balancing doesn’t work.

Before patch it would be uncommon to have an actual balanced game. Now it is uncommon to have a completely one-sided stomp.[/quote]

I have yet to experience this. I either lose because autobalance places a bunch of incompetent players on my team and I’m not capable of carrying that hard, or I win because it decided that I was allowed to have one or two of the other good players in the lobby. This game is inherently unbalanced by player skill, and forcing me to play against my friends is not helping it. If you would like I can record the ending of my next 10 games and see how often I see the words “the teams were well balanced”.

[/quote]

This.

There’s not many good players on each server. The whole “team imbalance” wasn’t an issue from friends “stacking,” it was an issue from there being a lot of bad players who end up being too much dead weight for their team to win. Instead of acknowledging they play poorly, they complain that teams were unfair. This is a complaint I see at the end of nearly every single match. I also still see spawn camping on a regular basis. I also still see a bunch of people from the same team rage quit at the end of a match. It’s obvious stomps still occur.

This is because the way they balance teams out isn’t ANY different from pre-patch. The ONLY difference is you can’t switch teams during the lobby which you couldn’t do pre-patch anyways unless your team had more players. It was already very unlikely to ever have more than yourself and one other friend on the same team, so stacking was NEVER the issue because you couldn’t stack in the first place–unless the autobalance (WHICH IS THE SAME NOW AS IT WAS PRE-PATCH) already put several friends together on the same team.

The “issue” is from the sheer amount of bad vs good players. Whichever team has the “heavier” bads on it will lose, just like in all mp games in the history of ever. I don’t get the whole motivation behind trying to “balance” the game through moving players around and locking friends out from playing with each other when all matches will have inherently high imbalance just from high variance in player skill within a server.

The new lobby system is absolutely a disaster. It didn’t accomplish it’s supposed purpose of “balancing” pubs which can’t really happen anyways. It only managed to further shrink the player base and keep friends from playing with each other IN A MULTIPLAYER GAME. I’m still honestly shocked they’d do something this stupid… Keep friends from playing with each other in a MULTI. PLAYER. GAME. Just wow.

(Szakalot) #117

[quote=“Jurmabones;87489”][quote=“Halosheep;87475”][quote=“Szakalot;87424”]
And sure, there are a few stomps here and there, but on average, its a lot better than it was before. Just because you don’t like the change due to forced team’s, doesn’t mean the idea of balancing doesn’t work.

Before patch it would be uncommon to have an actual balanced game. Now it is uncommon to have a completely one-sided stomp.[/quote]

I have yet to experience this. I either lose because autobalance places a bunch of incompetent players on my team and I’m not capable of carrying that hard, or I win because it decided that I was allowed to have one or two of the other good players in the lobby. This game is inherently unbalanced by player skill, and forcing me to play against my friends is not helping it. If you would like I can record the ending of my next 10 games and see how often I see the words “the teams were well balanced”.

[/quote]

This.

There’s not many good players on each server. The whole “team imbalance” wasn’t an issue from friends “stacking,” it was an issue from there being a lot of bad players who end up being too much dead weight for their team to win. Instead of acknowledging they play poorly, they complain that teams were unfair. This is a complaint I see at the end of nearly every single match. I also still see spawn camping on a regular basis. I also still see a bunch of people from the same team rage quit at the end of a match. It’s obvious stomps still occur.[/quote]

You are talking out of your ass. Sure, there is plenty of (very) poor players that do not help their team win. But if the teams were fair, these players would be distributed evenly among both teams. Its not about poor players not acknowledging that its ‘their fault’ that they got stomped. Its about the mechanics of the game balance (how is balancing done in the game).

Getting stomped can be a very frustrating experience, regardless of your personal skill level. DB is very punishing to slight unbalances in teams, so if you are losing, you tend to lose HARD; always facing 3 opponents with no backup.

This is because the way they balance teams out isn’t ANY different from pre-patch. The ONLY difference is you can’t switch teams during the lobby which you couldn’t do pre-patch anyways unless your team had more players. It was already very unlikely to ever have more than yourself and one other friend on the same team, so stacking was NEVER the issue because you couldn’t stack in the first place–unless the autobalance (WHICH IS THE SAME NOW AS IT WAS PRE-PATCH) already put several friends together on the same team.

again, you are talking out of your ass. It has been explained over and over again what balancing system changes were made, and how they differ from the previous system. Please stop spreading misinformation.

I agree that more effort should be put into separating bad and good players. We’ve seen the introduction of max and min lvl servers, its clear that more can be done.

(Jurmabones) #118

Point me to where they say they do something besides sort people based on their last 10 games.

(triteTongs) #119

[quote=“Szakalot;87486”][quote=“triteTongs;87406”][quote=“Szakalot;87228”]
you don’t get it.
[/quote]
The only time it’s ACTUALLY BALANCED is when a RANDOM high level, high skilled player RANDOMLY CLICKS the server I’m in and gets placed on the OTHER team.
[/quote]

makes sense if you join mid-game. If a game was started, and you are as good as you say; the system would pack you up with the 7 worst players on the server. Unless you can carry 1v8, this will not turn up good for you, at least not as a perfect smash. Admittedly this is less of an issue at 12-player servers (where having one high-level player in a team makes a bigger difference than the 8v8 spamfests).[/quote]

It was a 7v7 stopwatch. I had to play it because I was playing with a level 4 friend (he bottom scored, fyi). He wasn’t having fun facing me and the other team left, so I switched over to play with him. It was the only server that we could find that had two spots available to join.

PixelTwitch shares the same view. I mentioned this earlier in this thread about solo objective high level players:
http://forums.warchest.com/showthread.php/46071-let-people-choose-their-own-teams-and-play-with-their-friends-on-objective-public?p=538751&viewfull=1#post538751

Shares the same view of why I don’t play competitive either.

(Merci1ess) #120

So… I’ve played a few games since this monstrosity of a change appeared and honestly, this word called “balance” SD desperately tried to introduce us to is failing dramatically.

I am placed in just the shittiest teams sometimes where I’m supposedly the designated carrier. As much as I’d love to carry my team, I’m just one dude in a team of 6 or 7. I was already incensed when I first heard about this change on the fact that SD would make it harder for me to play with my friends. Already! This got me pissed and in my mind I thought that the games were gonna be, supposedly, “more balanced”. And then… It’s not? I mean the fact that the games are like this doesn’t piss me off. I win some and I lose some. Just like it was before. The problem here is that it’s just making it harder for me to play with the person I wanna play with.

Here’s a great balanced match I played the 25th of this month:

http://puu.sh/kpG68/3957b4268e.jpg

My score is lower than the 4th player of the other team and It’s not because I’m a bad player. My entire team was just not competing against these people. In other words, your balance did jack shit before the start of the match.

Here’s an example of what happened when I made the greatest sin of all and played with my partner on the same team:

http://puu.sh/kpGP7/bf6c05484d.jpg

We lost… Amazing isn’t it?