Hackusations only occur, when bad players (that think they are the shit) end up in matches with players that REALLY are the shit.
I still go with my favourite idealism, skill bracketing. If you are frequently put into matches where every other player is your equal, you will NEVER be accused of hacking.
Hackusations only occur, when bad players (that think they are the shit) end up in matches with players that REALLY are the shit. [/quote]Nope.
In few days I have been both in the same team and in opposite team while someone has called someone hacker. In both times spectating them, they were pretty clearly having some kind of help.
So, NO.
it’s not nice to call someone out and it’s better to spectate and report, but you’re still wrong about what you said.
It happens when @$!# use hacks against even the good players making unbalanced matches even more so.
I like how people want to use levels to measure how good a player is when it’s not very effective.
If you really want to know how skillful or valuable a person is, look at their average score per minute.
Hackusations only occur, when bad players (that think they are the shit) end up in matches with players that REALLY are the shit. [/quote]Nope.
In few days I have been both in the same team and in opposite team while someone has called someone hacker. In both times spectating them, they were pretty clearly having some kind of help.
So, NO.
it’s not nice to call someone out and it’s better to spectate and report, but you’re still wrong about what you said.
It happens when @$!# use hacks against even the good players making unbalanced matches even more so.
[/quote]
Sorry, but my post completely flew over your head there mate. I was talking specifically about players, that accuse other players, that ARE NOT hacking, they are just better at the game. And we would not have that problem, if we had skill brackets.
Bad player meets another bad player, button mashing ensues. This is awesome, because they will enjoy it.
But then good player meets another good player, and they fight each other with brains. This is also awesome, because they are thinking, and will do their best to outplay each other.
Then we have the shitty options, where bad player meets good player, gets smashed, and the bad player runs and hides behind the devs (waaah waaaah, he killed me 23 times, he must be hacking, BAN HIM!!!). And when good player meets bad player, he doesn’t even notice that bad player, he has already killed him and moved onto the next target. In both cases, no one is really happy (aside from the odd insecure bellend that loves bullying players that are far worse than he is).
you forgot the two cases where the bad player meets hacker and where the good player meets hacker.
@Amerika
It’s exactly how @Kaneki said. But on top of that you’re right that people learn at different rates. Some really get into it early on and try to improve, others don’t care. Yet that doesn’t mean that they will not improve at all.
Now that high level mediocre guy you’re mentioning, he’ll still know more about the game’s mechanics than a newcomer and you yourself wrote that people in his late teens and twenties keep beating him. But that’s exactly what I said multiple times: after level 12 or so, differences start to gum out, as aim is the only differentiator left.
Level 12 or so amounts to about 100h of gameplay and most people know both the maps and mercs by then. Things like leaving a Phoenix to be revived or running towards a downed Nader are a thing of the past.
yeah, there are cases where a person with 500h will aim worse than another with 10h, but 10h is not enough to know everything there is to know about maps, strategies and merc abilities.
And here is one reality that does suck and gives the original OP credit: countless times have I been in games where one team had all level 10 and above, while the other 10 and below. I’m sorry but one is right at the threshold of “sufficient experience” and the specific levels don’t matter, because there is a definite unbalance. And unfortunately, these situations are not rare, they are currently the normal scenario. And that cannot happen for the game to be fair.
Hiding levels, will not make this issue go away. It’s as simple as that.
My use of late teens/early twenties was completely arbitrary.
Hiding levels will make a person stop blaming levels for you losing and force you to analyze why you lost and look at your teammates and the other team. It’s a simple as that. Remove the blame crutch and suddenly people start learning the game more and noticing that maybe they should have ran with a medict, or perhaps a fire support on the second part of Underground. Or doubled up on engineers. Rather than tab to the scoreboard, see that the team had one slightly higher level player and blame that. It’s a crutch for people who want an easy thing to blame their loss on.
@Lumi What do you believe is positive about showing account level right now?
[quote=“immenseWalnut;93045”]Sorry, but my post completely flew over your head there mate.
if we had skill brackets. [/quote]Well, Ok. I’m not against that suggestion but it won’t remove the problem.
[quote=“Amerika;93196”]My use of late teens/early twenties was completely arbitrary.
Hiding levels will make a person stop blaming levels for you losing and force you to analyze why you lost and look at your teammates and the other team. It’s a simple as that. Remove the blame crutch and suddenly people start learning the game more and noticing that maybe they should have ran with a medict, or perhaps a fire support on the second part of Underground. Or doubled up on engineers. Rather than tab to the scoreboard, see that the team had one slightly higher level player and blame that. It’s a crutch for people who want an easy thing to blame their loss on.
[/quote]I disagree strongly.
If example 30-40 level Fragger (or whatever) gets 50 kills on objective match , “git gud” won’t help it.
If you are playing on pubs or soloqueeing on comp it doesn’t really help think that “well, I could have done that different or we could have maybe…” since the match is already over and you won’t play with the same people ever again.
It does help premade teams on comp to analyze but individual mistakes during match when you don’t really know who you are playing with or against in such random enviroment as pubs or soloqueeing comp? Nah.
The problem what you describing is that matchmaking and balancing teams IS BROKEN.
Blaming it to that because it shows levels an saying people should just learn is, I’m sorry to say this to you Amerika, BS.
Why it should show levels?.. because then we can judge how bad the team balance sucks, even though quite often it’s easy to see without them what is going to happen.
Also if people want to switch sides it makes easier people to judge the issue even though I’m not saying levels are exact representation of that player skill that particular moment.
Personally I’m like really close quitting this game since example last night I had five complete stomps where I was in the side who was stomping and simple glimpse of “team balance” based into levels exactly showed where the problem was. After that I had one the other way around and again, when I saw the level of teams I KNEW what was going to happen. I probably had best k/d ratio ever (except when I was playing Phantom in it’s original release state, :lol: ) but my team got stomped. What should I learn from it? What? “kill more”?
It doesn’t help those guys who sit on their spawn by saying “you could learn from that”.
Especially newbies, they just stop playing the game.
It’s possible you are talking about comp though but before you can really learn, you must have some kind of place to learn, and it surely isn’t your spawn.
I’m sorry for the rant but I really would like to have some close balanced matches since currently it feels like I’m wasting my time on this game. Let alone hackers who have crawled back.
[quote=“crabbyDimension;93229”][quote=“immenseWalnut;93045”]Sorry, but my post completely flew over your head there mate.
if we had skill brackets. [/quote]Well, Ok. I’m not against that suggestion but it won’t remove the problem.
[quote=“Amerika;93196”]My use of late teens/early twenties was completely arbitrary.
Hiding levels will make a person stop blaming levels for you losing and force you to analyze why you lost and look at your teammates and the other team. It’s a simple as that. Remove the blame crutch and suddenly people start learning the game more and noticing that maybe they should have ran with a medict, or perhaps a fire support on the second part of Underground. Or doubled up on engineers. Rather than tab to the scoreboard, see that the team had one slightly higher level player and blame that. It’s a crutch for people who want an easy thing to blame their loss on.
[/quote]I disagree strongly.
If 30-40 level Fragger gets 50 kills on objective match, “git gud” won’t help it.
If you are playing on pubs or soloqueeing on comp it doesn’t really help think that “well, I could have done that different or we could have maybe…” since the match is already over and you won’t play with the same people ever again.
It does help premade teams on comp to analyze but individual mistakes during match when you don’t really know who you are playing with or against in such random enviroment as pubs or soloqueeing comp? Nah.
The problem what you describing is that matchmaking and balancing teams IS BROKEN.
Blaming it to that because it shows levels an saying people should just learn is, I’m sorry to say this to you Amerika, BS.
Why it should show levels because then we can judge how bad the team balance sucks, even though quite often it’s easy to see without them?
Also if people want to switch sides it makes easier people to judge the issue even though I’m not saying levels are exact representation of that player skill that particular moment.
Personally I’m like really close quitting this game since example last night I had five complete stomps where I was in the side who was stomping and simple glimpse of “team balance” based into levels exactly showed where the problem was. After that I had one the other way around and again, when I saw the level of teams I KNEW what was going to happen. I probably had best k/d ratio ever (except when I was playing Phantom in it’s original release state, :lol: ) but my team got stomped. What should I learn from it? What? “kill more”?
It doesn’t help those guys who sit on their spawn by saying “you could learn from that”.
Especially newbies, they just stop playing the game.
It’s possible you are talking about comp though but before you can really learn, you must have some kind of place to learn, and it surely isn’t your spawn.
[/quote]
When I say analyze I don’t mean discuss it with the people you played with. I mean you see that you had 3 Vassili’s, no engineers and a fire support who didn’t give ammo as the reason you lost and let it go at that. Not because the other team had a person that had a higher level than somebody on your team.
Using levels as a reason you lost is a crutch and causes people to be super upset over something that isn’t even used, for obvious reasons that have been clearly outlined in this thread and the developers also understand (hence why it was excluded), in balancing teams.
ELO is used instead of time played because it more accurately represents actual skill. It’s almost impossible to argue against that. The only thing they could probably do better is make the ELO scoring go back more games. Instead of the last 10 for a pub it could be the last 20 or 30.
ELO is used in pretty much every game with a matchmaking system because it attempts to index a player’s actual skill level. The issue in DB is that there are a lot more variables to consider since you can use 3 classes with different guns and loadouts and not every team is going to have everything a team typically will need to win. You might have better players who are a bit lower level on your team but you didn’t have a single engineer to repair the EV. And the other team had two guys who were very good at taking down the EV as a priority. Did your team lose because the other team had a couple players who played a few more hours or did your team lose because it didn’t have what it needed to push the EV?
My point is you’re looking for an easy excuse as opposed to figuring out the issue (and then accepting it). And in this case there probably isn’t going to be a fix or not a great one. Every single game has imbalanced matches. DB is no different so I’m not sure why some people are acting as if it is. It’s also more complex than a standard shooter that uses ELO balancing. Balancing by account won’t change anything and would most likely make balance even worse since it’s not factoring in actual skill level or how well you’ve done recently.
@Amerika
I never tab first to see where the problem is coming from. I first see someone as Arty or skyhammer never providing ammo, or an Aura never deploying her station or engineers that are miles away from the objective and then I tab. And what do I see? That those people misusing their mercs are all low level.
Same applies to when we are crushing the other team to the point of pushing them back to the spawn. I tab and see that we have mainly 10’s and up while the other team has mainly low levels.
Levels are not a reason to complain, but an explanation as to why things are not falling into place. Now situations in which lack of medic or other strategic wrong decisions are the main blame in a game only arise in balanced, all high level player games. Mainly in min level 10 servers to be honest.
Because truth be told, like it or not, current pub games are defined by the amount of low levels in your team and the capacity of high levels to carry them sufficiently or not. Removing levels will just have us look at the steam profiles to find the cause for a player’s poor performance and lack of game experience/ understanding. So 'm sorry but removing levels will not fix the unbalanced team issue. It’s completely besides the point.
PS: The current ELO system is broken, as proven by the amount of unbalanced games out there.
Gee, what a fucking surprise. Not letting friends play together didn’t do a goddamn thing to keep pubs from being random shitshows filled with baddies.
It’s funny how retarded all the people defending the lobby change look now. Still regular threads bitching about bad team balance.
It’s like I said all along: people are frustrated because they suck. Autobalance, no team swapping, etc., none of that will fix a goddamn thing because too many players suck ass at this game, are too stubborn or stupid to get better at it and will always be frustrated no matter what is done to accommodate them because deep down they will always be frustrated because they SUCK. Period.
Splash Damage needs to get their shit together and just stop implementing changes that pander to all the noob dumb fucks. This game is probably irreversibly garbage now though. Why would anyone waste time coming back when their recent track record has been to do nothing but game-ruining, noob-catering retard changes?
[quote=“Lumi;93240”]@Amerika
I never tab first to see where the problem is coming from. I first see someone as Arty or skyhammer never providing ammo, or an Aura never deploying her station or engineers that are miles away from the objective and then I tab. And what do I see? That those people misusing their mercs are all low level.
Same applies to when we are crushing the other team to the point of pushing them back to the spawn. I tab and see that we have mainly 10’s and up while the other team has mainly low levels.
Levels are not a reason to complain, but an explanation as to why things are not falling into place. Now situations in which lack of medic or other strategic wrong decisions are the main blame in a game only arise in balanced, all high level player games. Mainly in min level 10 servers to be honest.
Because truth be told, like it or not, current pub games are defined by the amount of low levels in your team and the capacity of high levels to carry them sufficiently or not. Removing levels will just have us look at the steam profiles to find the cause for a player’s poor performance and lack of game experience/ understanding. So 'm sorry but removing levels will not fix the unbalanced team issue. It’s completely besides the point.
PS: The current ELO system is broken, as proven by the amount of unbalanced games out there.[/quote]
Proven where? If we are getting completely anecdotal and throw out personal opinion as if it’s a fact then I would like to throw in that I’ve never had harder pub games before the most recent lobby change that sorted people at the end of the lobby. Balance has been better than ever.
I do think that the ELO system needs to be re-worked as I believe it’s too simple. If it factored in your last 20 games and did it per merc and then also factored in the squads each person brings per team it might help a bit. But even then there is no guarantee that you’ll get a balanced match due to the way some people want to play. Some people might be goofing off on a voip and not paying attention. Some might be watching Netflix mostly and playing. Things like this can’t be factored in. The best you can do is go for an attempt at averaging out skill per team and crossing your fingers. This is why using account level is just a crutch for people who want to blame something easy and put no thought into it.
Balancing by time played will produce similar or worse results than what we have now. Not to mention it will be a really stupid system to use in a year when everyone still playing has hundreds, possibly thousands of hours playing. What do you do then? Do you still balance by time played?
adding autoteambalance ingame tf2 style = problem solved (Pubs)
The keyboardwarriors still can enter competitive with their premades & jizz all over the enemy team.
Since there is not statistical data provided by SD currently, the only measure of how balanced or unbalanced games are is people’s opinion on the matter. And you’re currently the only person advocating that they aren’t unbalanced, but you even agree that the current system needs a rework, while me and many other do acknowledge that games are unbalanced. In court cases they also use witnesses as proof when there is a lack of hard evidence. I don’t see why it couldn’t be the same here.
Also, I never advocated that balancing a team should be done by time played. But I am strictly against the current based average of ELO scores that tends to put in one top player with a bunch of mediocre players against a team of average players. It creates unbalanced situations.
I believe that players should in fact be separated into boxes. Max level 11 servers and min level 12 servers. No mixing of both populations. When all players are on the same level regarding map and merc experience, only then can one hope to achieve proper balancing. Otherwise, there are experienced players who keep pushing the objectives or playing medic, while the newcomers didn’t even start to think of those things. They need time to learn. Only up to level 5 is not enough.
I’m having a hard time reading all these arguments but listen man, there is literally no where the veterans can go, yeah we have dbnation and pugs, but jeez man i just wanna pick up and play, not wait for 10 to get in a mumble/teamspeak to play some pugs…we have min 10 servers that are dead 80% of the time and when they are up and full they die after the 2nd map.
We really have no where to go and there is no way you can just throw us in a min 30 level server or min 40 level server there arent enough players in one specific region to play in those at one certain time. And in reality they do exists and they’re called pugs but some people like me don’t want to wait to play.
[quote=“Lumi;93277”]Since there is not statistical data provided by SD currently, the only measure of how balanced or unbalanced games are is people’s opinion on the matter. And you’re currently the only person advocating that they aren’t unbalanced, but you even agree that the current system needs a rework, while me and many other do acknowledge that games are unbalanced. In court cases they also use witnesses as proof when there is a lack of hard evidence. I don’t see why it couldn’t be the same here.
Also, I never advocated that balancing a team should be done by time played. But I am strictly against the current based average of ELO scores that tends to put in one top player with a bunch of mediocre players against a team of average players. It creates unbalanced situations.
I believe that players should in fact be separated into boxes. Max level 11 servers and min level 12 servers. No mixing of both populations. When all players are on the same level regarding map and merc experience, only then can one hope to achieve proper balancing. Otherwise, there are experienced players who keep pushing the objectives or playing medic, while the newcomers didn’t even start to think of those things. They need time to learn. Only up to level 5 is not enough.[/quote]
Many other people across many other threads that discuss this same topic agree with me about not sorting by time played. So don’t get all anecdotal and cherry pick due to lack of participation of a tired subject. Also, I was being sarcastic. I guess I should have used the B) emote.
I also didn’t say the current system was perfect. That’s why I discussed a system that would potentially make it better that is logical and factors in actual skill as opposed to simply time played. However, since I’m a guy who thinks things through, I also noted the issues with trying to get good balance and how it’s extremely hard to achieve based on multiple variables in regards to how people play, how many mercs their are, experience with those mercs, how good they’ve actually done etc. Presenting a good argument means that you not only look at positives but the potential negatives or issues that will need to be overcome. And I’ll discuss a rather huge negative with your suggestion that you didn’t bring up in the next paragraph.
So you want to separate the player pool, hand hold them and then finally let them play against decent players only after an arbitrary number has been reached? What happens when players like myself get stuck in that lower pool? My first two games in DB I got over 100 kills in Stopwatch matches because I have a ton of experience in games like this and at the time the skill range was rather low. I’d be stuck in that pool for what, 100 or 200 hours? Just destroying people until I hit some arbitrary number that finally let me play against people who are at my actual skill level? That’s a huge issue not only for those other players but for myself also. I don’t want to be stuck there either. How do you fix this with your proposal? Why do you believe that people have to play for hundreds of hours before they can stop being handheld?
Everyone can agree we all want better balance. But I realize that not every match can be balanced based on previously discussed variables (that also effects your proposal just the same…or do you disagree on that?) so I’m not getting too upset. I just want something that will work. And I definitely don’t want to let sharks swim in the kiddie pool for hundreds of hours.
First of all I honestly doubt you managed 100 kills, second if you did, then you most likely weren’t playing the objective and third, if you do get kills at that rate you also get more XP and you’ll leave that low player pool faster. It’s as simple as that.
furthermore, in the current situation the game sucks for everyone when unbalanced, in the separated iteration only games in which the rare “prodigies” like you are in would be unbalanced.
And on a final note, if you have so much skill, then what are you doing on a noob friendly game like DB? Why not play CS professionally or semi? Or find some even more skill based game?
[quote=“Lumi;93313”]First of all I honestly doubt you managed 100 kills, second if you did, then you most likely weren’t playing the objective and third, if you do get kills at that rate you also get more XP and you’ll leave that low player pool faster. It’s as simple as that.
furthermore, in the current situation the game sucks for everyone when unbalanced, in the separated iteration only games in which the rare “prodigies” like you are in would be unbalanced.
And on a final note, if you have so much skill, then what are you doing on a noob friendly game like DB? Why not play CS professionally or semi? Or find some even more skill based game?[/quote]
This isn’t about me. If you want to know about me, PM me and I’ll give you my history and my YT channel (it might surprise you). I only used myself as an easy example to show a potential flaw in your proposal.
So please stay on topic if you would 
I’d also like it if you answered my questions when you have time.
Dirty bomb was never intended to be noob-friendly smh… its supposed to bring back the classic feel of competitive/objective based gaming that requires teamwork. Like myself the only reason why I play this game is to get the old classic nostalgia of gaming when everyone tried their hardest.
@Amerika
First of all, you brought the focus on yourself. I merely replied to what I thought of your argument, or should I have ignored it because it was personal? Wouldn’t seem fair though that you could use it for the sake of your argument without allowing me to analyse it through my eyes.
Now regarding your questions I thought I replied to them, but maybe I wasn’t too specific and I can reiterate in a more focused way.
Yes, just as now comp is cut off at an arbitrary number, which, let’s face it, is way too low.
When players like “yourself” get stuck in that pool, they still need to learn the maps, they still need to learn what mercs’ strengths and weaknesses are, or are you going tell me that you brought that knowledge along from past experiences?
That’s where your concept of balancing is wrong and maybe you misunderstood me as well. What I expect from balanced games are not that we have perfect skill distribution (aim, reactiveness and dodge). No, never as that is impossible to get right every time. The current system actual manages the occasional skill match-up right. But what I want is proper experience distribution, which incidentally level is an indicator of. And when I talk experience I mean, map and mercs knowledge. Skill is not in the same category.
I don’t fix that. As you said way back, there will be people with 1h of gameplay with great skill and players with 200h with poor skill. The only thing my proposal solves is content experience match-up, which has a correlation with time spent on the game. Nonetheless, since level is bound to XP gain and that gain is correlated to your performance, the better you play, the faster you’ll move on. It’s as simple as that.
Maybe not hundreds. I don’t have the hour to level ratio in mind. But I’d say between 30 to 40h would be the low end of having basic map and merc knowledge. More as the merc count rises as well as maps and game modes.
I agree, variables such as people not dedicating themselves to the game, etc. cannot be taken into consideration by neither your nor my system. But that’s why there is a kick system. If someone is afk, or actively sabotaging the game, the team can always kick them. And, yeah we all want better balance, but the differences in skill are exactly what makes a game be won on one side and not the other.
Now when losses happen because of people not playing the game, which is heavily team based (I hope you agree with me on that), then a sense of injustice sets in. Why? Because one doesn’t get the feeling that one lost because the other team played better, but one feels that the match-making stuck us with people lacking fundamental knowledge of the game’s mechanics, which lead to the loss. This is where my proposal would remove that feeling and people with similar knowledge would be matched up with similar knowledge people. Matchmaking could still be left to ELO or other skill based balancing and then one would be measuring only skill. Now I just feel like I’m playing a match to see who was dragging the most inexperienced players along. I have had numerous games where I join with a similarly skilled friend and we end up on separate teams and both do double the amount of score than the second on our team. And it’s really a question of who has the worst team, not who’s playing the best. that’s the general feeling I get from the current games.
And I’m not stupid. I know that my proposal has it’s flaws and would likely frustrate a lot of newcomers, which is why it will never be implemented as SD and Nexon cannot afford to scare potential customers away. The only way this system might work would be in an already finished, funded and lucrative game with a majority of veteran players. But then again, the amount of newcomers would be so little that it really wouldn’t matter if one or two inexperienced players would join a regular game.
In the end I think that writing this post brought me an epiphany: DB is a free to play game and as such it will have a small veteran community and a continuous flow of short time joiners and quitters, who will not bother with learning the game properly and will just mess with longer time players’ ability to play a nice game where every medic, engineer, support, etc. does his/her job and focusses on doing it right. It’s sad to realize, really. And I can only hope that one day the game will be old and finished and nobody will bother trying it out and people like you and I will be on the servers playing having the best experience this game will be able to provide, as it will be proper focused players that like the game and have liked it for long, know the ins and out and will do their job.
[quote=“messiah;93319”]
Dirty bomb was never intended to be noob-friendly smh… its supposed to bring back the classic feel of competitive/objective based gaming that requires teamwork. Like myself the only reason why I play this game is to get the old classic nostalgia of gaming when everyone tried their hardest.[/quote]
I agree that it might have started that way and I really would love everyone actually trying their hardest, but DB has shifted into the direction of the noob-friendly FPS, with mercs providing easy kills, such as Nader and Rhino. And removing recoil and spread always gets advertised as a step towards favouring skilled players, but I just don’t feel satisfied if I don’t need to control my weapon. That’s where I think skill lies as well, not only aim. Anyone can aim, given enough time. Even your grand-mother can aim with the mouse at an icon on the desktop and open up the browser. And reflexes are a thing of age. There is that high reflex age around 16 until 20 or so. I might be wrong on the exact numbers, I can’t remember. But recoil and spread is something you need to learn for each gun. And then when you master it, that’s when you reap the rewards. I like the rewarding feeling of that, but here we have an “pick up the weapon and you’ve mastered it mechanic”. No recoil to control, no spread to account for. Made me sad when they made those changes and I almost quit DB, I actually stopped for a month and a half. But I came back because I’m awaiting to see if we’ll get some nice changes in the future. I guess I could call it Nostalgia as well.