shuffle by XP already


(RectalTerror) #1

Since day one the devs have refused to shuffle by XP. For the only reason that “yeah sometimes low lvls are good players”. Yet, nothing that has been implemented has worked… isn’t it time to just give up and at least try shuffling by XP?

I’m just concluding by what I see. I compare the sum of the lvls of the team that’s getting stomped around spawn, and usually, most of the time, it’s way lower.
Yes, sometimes it happens, very rarely, that the team with the lowest lvl sum is winning. But what’s sure is that most of the time the balance just sucks. And most of the time the current shuffling just either doesn’t change anything, or simply flips the stomping sides.

And EVEN if shuffling by XP gave us a 50% chance of balanced match, it’d still be way way better than what we have now.

Also, only the team with the lowest XP should be able to vote shuffles. Shuffles don’t pass, simply because the stomping team vote against. I always vote against, when I’m on the stomping side. I’d be a real idiot if I voted to get sent to the stomped side, thus I vote against.

And yeah, maybe lots of good players will start over new accounts to cheat the system. Who cares, it will still be better than what we have now.

I’ve heard that the current system involves previous win/losses, is that true? Because if it is, it’s pretty dumb. I mean, tying a shuffle to something that the player hardly had any control over… Yes, whether you win or lose is luck, if you’ve been put on the stomped side, you lose.
Now if the game uses the in-match XP comparison to shuffle next games, then that doesn’t sound like a bad idea, but it’s not what I heard.

Edit: I should mention that I’m talking about the server browser. I’m not using matchmaking, for the reason that I’m not a masochist. Waiting for 10min to join a game (that will most likely be shitty anyway), no thank you. Even if it worked, I wouldn’t do it.

Talking about this, I feel like the game doesn’t have enough backdoors.
Back to Wolf:ET days, can’t remember the name of that default map - you had to escort the tank to the enemy’s base.
Thing is, you could be with a crap team and still win that map, because you’d pick spy, steal an enemy’s uniform, get inside the base from the locked door, and providing you had at least 1 other good teammate, get him inside and he’d plant.
DB maps don’t have enough of this. I’m not talking about semi-sneaking parts like Bridge has. When your team get spawnraped in Bridge, you can generally sneak behind the enemy and you can repair easily, there isn’t anyone guarding the EV because they all got too cocky. So in a way some maps provide ways for 1 or 2 good players to change the deal, but they only do that for 1 part of the map. There is simply no map that give hope to a shitty team.

No, what’s missing is a direct access to the last objs. Something that would give hope to a shitty match. Right now you generally know when you have zero chance to win.
I’m not saying I know how this would be possible in DB… perhaps through backdoors that would take like 2 or 3 minutes of eng time to open them.


(GatoCommodore) #2

what if there is 13 level 10 and 1 level 91
how do you balance that?

exactly…


(ThePigVomit) #3

I’m sure the built in shuffu takes XP into consideration, along with KDR, and the specific XP components.

But going by straight XP? Idiocy.


(henki000) #4

Shuffle should be based on modification of Elo rating system. If there is impossible pool with players like GatoCommodore said, then it should be compensated with time. There could be also fun shuffles where teams could be with highest/lowest skills against mediocre players and perhaps even 1vs3 like it was in back in the days of execution. There should be no shuffle implemented to competetive matchmaking or in scrims.


(Press E) #5

As far as I know, shuffle more or less random right now. If anything it seems based on levels. But if it really is based on wins and loses, that just shows you how great Elo is lol.

@henki000 said:
Shuffle should be based on modification of Elo rating system. If there is impossible pool with players like GatoCommodore said, then it should be compensated with time. There could be also fun shuffles where teams could be with highest/lowest skills against mediocre players and perhaps even 1vs3 like it was in back in the days of execution. There should be no shuffle implemented to competetive matchmaking or in scrims.

The Elo system is the cause of most of these issues though. I mean, CMM and ranked are pretty much just as balanced as a server browser stopwatch match. It would be helpful if a bunch of people leave and the people who replaced them were imbalanced, but a lot of the time matches are balanced poorly from the start. Using a system that a lot of the community hates and considers unbalanced wouldn’t help. Just look at ranked.
Yeah, there’s no perfect solution, but Elo is probably one of the worst possible ways to solve this. Elo is meaningless whenever you don’t have fixed teams. Elo rating is about as close to skill as level is to skill. When teams constantly change, Elo only represents your luck with who you were matched with, and who’s on the enemy team. And DB’s small playerbase only hurts that even more.

Elo was developed for chess, a game with only two players. Using it in a dynamic game like DB is just insanity.


(henki000) #6

@STARRYSOCK
Most successful games out there uses ranking system that is based on Elo. I believe DB also count w/l/d, but then it should be more team synergy oriented. People have different skills with different mercs and unpredictable elements that affect them.


(GatoCommodore) #7

there is no such thing as balanced.

its a utopian dream that being able to be the same as the next person in terms of skill is just inhumane and morally bankrupt.

people nowadays being spoonfed victory too much and when it came to a competition they asked the bar to be lowered so they will only compete with people as crap as their own

that is not competition, thats taking other’s practice, hardwork, skill and talent and throwing it to the trash can.


(Press E) #8

@henki000 said:
@STARRYSOCK
Most successful games out there uses ranking system that is based on Elo. I believe DB also count w/l/d, but then it should be more team synergy oriented. People have different skills with different mercs and unpredictable elements that affect them.

DB doesn’t have to be just like every other game though.
And well, DB isn’t. Elo becomes more effective the larger your playerbase is. DB doesn’t have, and likely will never have a large playerbase, so using a system that works better with more players when you don’t have those numbers is just weird. Balance for what you have, not what you want.

And regardless of whether other games use it, it’s still by no means an ideal system. Yes, it’s flaws are less pronounced with more players, but they’re still there anyways. And it just makes no sense to use a system designed for 1v1 chess games for games with dynamic teams like this if you think about it.


(henki000) #9

@STARRYSOCK
It works in MechWarrior Online that has smaller playerbase than Dirty Bomb. Perhaps we dont know any good or bad about elo, if we dont even know if it is part of Dirty Bomb. IMO chess is a dynamic game that you can play with teams.


(Press E) #10

@henki000 said:
@STARRYSOCK
It works in MechWarrior Online that has smaller playerbase than Dirty Bomb. Perhaps we dont know any good or bad about elo, if we dont even know if it is part of Dirty Bomb. IMO chess is a dynamic game that you can play with teams.

Well, what we do know is that ranked and CMM use Elo, and they’re about as balanced as quick join, so I’m pretty sure it’ll take a lot more than minor tweaks to fix lol.
Never played mechwarrior so no idea how they do it, but personally I’d rather DB just scrap win/loss based rankings in favour of a personal performance system. Wins or losses still determine whether you gain or lose rank, but the percentage of your team’s total XP that you earned would influence how much you rank up or down. That’s just one way of doing things of course, but still.
Of course you could scrap Elo entirely, but ranked is supposed to be a team effort. Communication is just as important as anything else, which is why I believe that aspect should be kept. Just not the only factor as it is now. In chess, it’s typically only you vs your opponent. Your wins and losses only represent you, which is why Elo is an accurate overview of skill level in chess. But applying that system to a game with constantly changing teams just makes no sense, like I’ve said. sure it might work, but it comes with so many issues that I’m not sure why you’d want to use it.

I’m sorry, I’m probably getting too into this lol, but I just can’t really see a reason to use Elo over a personal performance based system.


(kopyright) #11

@GatoCommodore said:
people nowadays being spoonfed victory too much and when it came to a competition they asked the bar to be lowered so they will only compete with people as crap as their own

Team sports like football seem to do just fine with their league system making sure that the playing field stays somewhat leveled.


(RectalTerror) #12

@GatoCommodore said:
what if there is 13 level 10 and 1 level 91
how do you balance that?

exactly…

Doesn’t matter, the current algo cannot balance that EITHER


(RectalTerror) #13

@GatoCommodore said:
there is no such thing as balanced.

Yes there is, in the past it existed.
Wolf:ET was more balanced, because there were MORE players involved. Randomly shuffle 40 players and the chances of both being equally good are already 3x higher than by shuffling 14 people.

That’s really the problem with DB, it’s only 7 vs 7. I don’t even understand why… Surely “but today there are much more online games, you can’t gather as many players anymore” isn’t the reason. Because that’d be stupid - if the game can have at least 2 7vs7 servers filled, then it can have 1 14 vs 14. And a game that couldn’t even fill 2 7vs7 players servers, is pretty much considered dead.

Another problem is that the game, once again unlike Wolf:ET, only offers “competition”.
There is NO fun server, at all. I believe ET lived longer through fun servers, than it did during its days of normal competition.
Zero-spawn time 30vs30 servers, sure you were walking 2 feet and you were killed in packs by airstrikes, but it didn’t even matter, you were respawning immediately. I miss those.
When you complain that the balance sucks, you always get replied “calm down, it’s only pub” (like anyone cared about ranks - I don’t). Give me fun servers and I won’t complain. If I can get into a match with zero wait time, zero time wasted waiting to respawn, fun reduced cooldown times for abilities, then the goal won’t be to win, and it’ll be fun.


(Teflon Love) #14

@kopyright said:

@GatoCommodore said:
people nowadays being spoonfed victory too much and when it came to a competition they asked the bar to be lowered so they will only compete with people as crap as their own

Team sports like football seem to do just fine with their league system making sure that the playing field stays somewhat leveled.

That’s because football (soccer) teams have a guy that makes sure there is a good team composition. Swap him with DB’s matchmaking and you might end up with 11 goalkeepers.


(kopyright) #15

@teflonlove said:

@kopyright said:

@GatoCommodore said:
people nowadays being spoonfed victory too much and when it came to a competition they asked the bar to be lowered so they will only compete with people as crap as their own

Team sports like football seem to do just fine with their league system making sure that the playing field stays somewhat leveled.

That’s because football (soccer) teams have a guy that makes sure there is a good team composition. Swap him with DB’s matchmaking and you might end up with 11 goalkeepers.

I wouldn’t mind to see a football match where people could call in artillery strikes and throw conc nades, though.


(K1X455) #16

balance by ping distribution is better


(Xenithos) #17

@henki000 said:
@STARRYSOCK
It works in MechWarrior Online that has smaller playerbase than Dirty Bomb. Perhaps we dont know any good or bad about elo, if we dont even know if it is part of Dirty Bomb. IMO chess is a dynamic game that you can play with teams.

WTF? Since when did MWO have a smaller player base than DB?