Matchmaking needs some serious work.

[Grayseven]

So I rolled over to the imp side to use GSF to level a toon I want to set up for mid-level PvP. I found myself in a noobish ship against guildies from the Republic side that have very advanced load outs on their ships.

 

I think the biggest reason people are down on Gunships is because a noob scout against a well-upgraded GS is a losing proposition. If the matchmaking system puts new-ish ships against advanced ships, you are going to get people turned off by the whole system.

 

Let's not even get into a noob scout against an advanced scout. The best you can hope for is to keep the other player busy for a while...until a gunship one shots you.

 

Seriously, matchmaking needs to ensure new ships with little to no upgrades aren't being thrown to the wolves. It is a complete frustration-fest when this happens because you don't do enough damage to kill anyone and you die very easy.

[RahzZalinto]

Why ever upgrade a ship if you're going to just be thrown in with other upgraded ships? Might as well never upgrade anything then. Edited December 10, 2013 by RahzZalinto

[Itkovian]

Firstly, the matchmaking DOES take into account how upgraded your ships are, but there are a few caveats:

 

1- It probably looks at the sum total of reqs spent in your entire stable. So if you have an uber-upgraded Pike and want to fly your decrepit Novadive, too bad, you're swimming with the big boys.

 

2- It has only been a week since release. It will take some time before matchmaking stabilizes, especially since the player base is limited to subscribers only.

 

Having made an alt yesterday and flown him for the first time, I can attest that something seems to be working right. I popped in a match full of new players. Might have been a lucky match, but it seemed very abnormal compared to the matches I usually engage in.

 

That said, I think people FAR overestimate the impact of upgrades. I have precisely ONE fighter that has ANY upgrades on my main, namely my Pike. All other fighters have no upgrade whatsoever, and yet I consistently score high in damage/kills/assists in my Starguard, Skybolt, and Novadive (to a lesser extent).

 

This tells me that while upgrades DO matter, it is not the main factor involved in success.

[Sportiva]

I don't think BW has really thought through how they are going to implement matchmaking.

 

For example, my FlashFire is almost fully upgraded, however, all of my other ships have zero upgrades on them. Since you can switch ships after a match starts, where should I get placed?

 

More than likely I'll be placed against other highly-upgraded ships, even though I'm flying one of my unupgraded ships.

 

To do matchmaking properly, I think BW need a player to stick with a ship choice for the entire match. Just my $0.02.

[Grayseven]

Skill can attenuate but not eliminate upgrade superiority. A non-upgraded ship simply doesn't have the survivability nor the damage output to compete with even medium upgraded ships.

 

Matchmaking, at its most basic, should tier the ships based on upgrades. If you can't even contribute due to your upgrades being inferior to the other ships, why even bother playing the match?

 

My skill on one toon should not influence matchmaking on another. Each toon should be independant to eliminate some poor sod in a noob ship getting a match against vastly more upgraded vessels.

[Benfynyn]

I don't think BW has really thought through how they are going to implement matchmaking.

 

For example, my FlashFire is almost fully upgraded, however, all of my other ships have zero upgrades on them. Since you can switch ships after a match starts, where should I get placed?

 

More than likely I'll be placed against other highly-upgraded ships, even though I'm flying one of my unupgraded ships.

 

To do matchmaking properly, I think BW need a player to stick with a ship choice for the entire match. Just my $0.02.

 

I was thinking about this as well. I think they would have to either;

 

a) require players to select their designated ship before the battle and not allow them to swap during the battle after a death and match accordinly or,

b) take the total spent requisition for the account and match accordingly or,

c) take the total spent requisition for the 5 selected ships and match accordingly or,

d) take your most upgraded ship as the point of measure and match accordingly

Edited December 10, 2013 by Benfynyn
swapped out use of the word match for battle when talking about the round of GSF

[Foambreaker]

It's already over, if they implemented match making there would not be enough of any single tier on most servers to pop the queue since match making basically splits the queue up by gear level.

 

Since the people with gear are already far ahead of those without, it is over, new players don't even get a chance to learn to fly and no one wants to learn while being farmed.

 

Participation will gradually decrease and there will never be enough to implement match making which means participation will continue to decrease.

[Grayseven]

I was thinking about this as well. I think they would have to either;

 

a) require players to select their designated ship before the match and not allow them to swap during the match after a death or,

b) take the total spent requisition for the account and match accordingly or,

c) take the total spent requisition for the 5 selected ships and match accordingly or,

d) take your most upgraded ship as the point of measure and match accordingly

 

Yeah, but if they take the total req earned then they should make it universal so that any ship can be upgraded on an account with ship req.

 

Designating a ship at launch and keeping it would create games of Gunships vs Scouts...

[Mallorik]

The way it should work is to average the upgrades on your ready bar(ships you can choose to fly in a match) and allow you to swap ships in and out. So if you have a fully upgraded flashfire but want to work on your gunship you can take the flashfire off your bar so you aren't put up against maxed out players on your ships with little to no upgrades.

[Grayseven]

The way it should work is to average the upgrades on your ready bar(ships you can choose to fly in a match) and allow you to swap ships in and out. So if you have a fully upgraded flashfire but want to work on your gunship you can take the flashfire off your bar so you aren't put up against maxed out players on your ships with little to no upgrades.

 

I think that would work well. If you don't have access to a ship in a match, it doesn't count towards matchmaking "score".

[b-morgan]

The way it should work is to average the upgrades on your ready bar(ships you can choose to fly in a match) and allow you to swap ships in and out. So if you have a fully upgraded flashfire but want to work on your gunship you can take the flashfire off your bar so you aren't put up against maxed out players on your ships with little to no upgrades.

 

I agree this is the best solution but has anyone figured out how to remove a ship from the ready bar?

[Benfynyn]

I agree this is the best solution but has anyone figured out how to remove a ship from the ready bar?

 

Click the ship on the ready bar.

 

Then click the button above it that says Select a Ship (i think that's what it says).

 

Then select the ship you want to replace it with.

 

I am not sure if you can de-select the current ship and leave it blank though. Will try when I get home from work.

[reclipsed]

It's already over, if they implemented match making there would not be enough of any single tier on most servers to pop the queue since match making basically splits the queue up by gear level.

 

Since the people with gear are already far ahead of those without, it is over, new players don't even get a chance to learn to fly and no one wants to learn while being farmed.

 

Participation will gradually decrease and there will never be enough to implement match making which means participation will continue to decrease.

 

 

While I agree that you needed to play non stop when gs first hit to have the advantage now, I disagree that it is over. We only have 2 maps and 3 types of ships (2 for a handful of unlucky people). And it is sub only atm.

 

When the rest of the game is released with the healer bomber and free2player's can enter matches, the balance will reset and you will get a second chance to level up your favorite ship.

[JimG]

2- It has only been a week since release. It will take some time before matchmaking stabilizes, especially since the player base is limited to subscribers only.

Exactly. We're 1 week into early access and we don't even have preferred or F2P players able to access GSF yet. When there are larger groups of people with upgraded ships and entry-level people, then match-making will become more effective.

[LeonBraun]

Two things here:

 

1. The tier upgrades really don't make or break anything. There is still plenty of things a new fighter can do competitively in the SF battle zone. (I know 'cause I've played fresh fighters on alts against good players)

 

2. There is a definite limit right now to SF upgrades and the gap will close very soon anyway. At which time it all comes down to skill as people will have no more to upgrade on their fighters.

[Ridickilis]

Been thinking about this a bit, why not a separate XP and skill tree (even a small one, say 20 points total) for pilot training. Three tree's, 20 talents in each tree, 20 talents total. One tree for weapon master, one for expert maneuvers and one for ...something...shield/armor expert.

 

XP you gain would be GSF only and then you can make/break down brackets according to pilot levels.

[Danylia]

There are many posts saying that in GSF skill >> gear, and I do agree with that. From this reason, I'd like to see matchmaking based not on gear level, but on variation of the Swiss-system.

 

Summary of what Swiss-system is:

The first round is either drawn at random or seeded according to some prior order, such as rating or last year's performance. All players then proceed to the next round where winners are pitted against winners, losers are pitted against losers, and so on. In subsequent rounds, each player faces an opponent with the same, or almost the same, score.

 

The coefficient which the matchmaking would be based on should be not wins total, but wins/games ratio (since 100 wins in 1000 games means something else than 100 wins in 100 games). And some initial "protection periode" would probably be necessary (for example, your first 10(?) games the coefficient always counts as 0).

 

This should ensure that the skilled players will face equally skilled opposition, and the less-skilled ones can still have fun in more "amateur" matches. Of course, large enough pool of players is required for this, so I wouldn't expect such matchmaking before F2P people enter the Starfighter.

[Grayseven]

My issues with the matchmaking system stem from the simple fact that I rarely see an even match between two sides.

 

Normally a match ends up with one side or the other completely dominating the game. On the rare occasion when both sides are evenly matched, the score usually ends up 900-ish to 1000. Otherwise, it is a 200-1000 stomp.

 

This above all other things tells me that matchmaking is flawed in some manner. Downplaying the advantage of upgrades doesn't solve anything either. Twitch skill being equal, those mods most definitely matter and putting highly upgraded ships against ships with little to no upgrades is just letting the modded ships pad their kill scores.

 

Without knowing exactly how the matchmaking system works, without knowing if you pull your modded ship of the ready bar and run your unmodded ship only has any effect, we are all just making conjecture at this point. But close matches shouldn't be so rare with a good matchmaking system in place.

[Ridickilis]

Without knowing exactly how the matchmaking system works, without knowing if you pull your modded ship of the ready bar and run your unmodded ship only has any effect, we are all just making conjecture at this point. But close matches shouldn't be so rare with a good matchmaking system in place.

 

Yeah, this is what I was wondering as well. Do they take our best ships, worst ships or an average of all of them when matchmaking. If they take our best ships, then we shouldn't really be flying anything else but those until the other's are at least close to par with those. If they take our worst, then just jump on your best and 'pwn n00bs'. That's what seems confusing and 'somewhat' flawed to me. I say somewhat only because I'm not sure exactly so it's hard to say it's flawed without all the details.

 

Also, this is why I would have had more emphasis placed on our pilot level/skill tree and make the different equipment upgrades based on what level your pilot 'tree' would have been. So, for instance if you're a level 10 pilot, you can only unlock tier 2 equipment...or something to that effect. Kinda like a level 36 toon can only wear up to level 36 gear.