Team Balancing?

[SammyGStatus]

So, after the dev's communication with the GSF community, I have a thought (keyword: THOUGHT) about matchmaking. Now we can all say that we wish we had more pops. Nothing can be done about that except having more people que. One way to increase the community size could be to have properly balanced teams, so new players can come in and ride the coattails of the aces until they themselves acquire, and eventually pass on, the gauntlet.

 

Step 1) Implement an internal ranking system.

I'm not talking about for us to see. I'm thinking more along the lines of total requisition / matches played. I'm sure there are a million ways to categorize pilots, but for simplicity's sake, let's just say total games and req.

 

Tier 1 - 2 or 3 ships, under 50 games, req under X value (without doing a fine-tuned search, I can't come up with specifics, but please keep in mind these are just general ways to go about creating an internal ranking)

Tier 2 - 3 or 4 ships (if 3 ships, under 150 games or X req; if 4 then under 200 games)

Tier 3 - 4 or 5 ships (Same pattern. 4 ships would be under X games AND X req; 5 ships would be a little tricky, but I'm a full believer of this game being more skills based than gear based).

Tier 4 - More than 5 ships (just follow the pattern - this is more an abstract concept than a proof)

 

Step 2) Creating a table in the database responsible for a sort counter

In C++ programming MANY years ago, we used a bubblesort program where user entered a value, and that value would be compared against a prearranged list. That value would rise up the list by comparing the individual value to the list (if higher, the sort would push that value one higher and compare it against the next value). Similar thing here, but it would be more along the lines of a conditional statement (if Team A has 1 person in the Tier 4 category, the next player to join that team CANNOT BE a Tier 4 player until the other side has 1 Tier 4 player)

 

Step 3) Figure out how to sort premades

I run with several groups of premades, because I have several different groups of people I GSF with. Most of these people and myself have been playing for a while, so we'd all be in the Tier 4 category. This would be the most difficult thing I could see if the other sections were implemented. If my squad has 4 T4's, I'm unsure how to balance that besides splitting the teams, and I wouldn't want that either... Suggestions here would be helpful

 

Again, these are just ideas trying to come up with solutions to benefit the entire community, and I'm by no means an expert on the internals of their matchmaking algorithm, but as the community can CLEARLY see, noobs getting killed by aces isn't fun (I said in a different thread that getting better comes with getting your ***** kicked a few times, but this isn't about a balance in terms of gameplay, but of the actual teams).

 

While it's likely that these ideas are never going to be implemented, I'd love for some feedback to flush the system out so that we could potentially arrive at a conclusion that benefits everyone involved with GSF. Thoughts / alternatives for balancing TEAMS (not ship roles!)

[Verain]

I think they have matchmaking and there aren't enough players and that's all there is to it.

 

Matchmaking probably looks at better stuff than "number of ships owned" (there are 5+ ship scrubs). The devs have a lot of numbers to look at, after all, so they probably use some of that.

 

 

The reality is that if I queue with three other players of my caliber or greater, it seems to take double premades for us to lose. I'm sure if we had global matchmaking across servers, that wouldn't be true- we could get matched against a different premade of similar skill, somewhere.

 

 

But we don't have that. That's the killer app that we need. And even once we DO have that, the farm matches will happen, just with less regularity.

 

 

 

 

In WoW arena, you have to be in the tiny majority- the multiglad level- to not have a win/loss record that approaches 50/50. If you are a bit behind that (gladiator range) and only queue when other players of your skill aren't playing- a hard task- then you'll sit in twenty minute queues and win games that don't boost your rank.

 

 

I don't know how ranked pvp play works here, but it's gotta be kind of similar.

 

 

 

The big deal is this: this game isn't ranked. It's all open warzones. Queuing up and shooting enemy players in the early game, midgame, and late game. There's no carrot, there's no ranked gear that you have to queue with a premade for. Would you want there to be? I think that's a real big question, because the LACK of that has made me a huge fan. I HAVE a nice group to run with, but if this had the same attitude as the WoW pvp scene, I wouldn't find myself trying to post helpful things and having so much fun. Yesterday I oqueued a rated battleground with my good friend, and sure enough, two of the folks we added LOST THEIR MINDS on one of the games that we lost.

 

 

So if we assume no ranked play, no special upgrade on your ship you can't unlock without winning a rated queue, then how does matchmaking know for sure? If most premades I have seen are in an 8v8, they can easily cover an afk player or a bot. If the enemy team is ALL new players, multiple weak or absent players can be carried. This is important because the actual win loss record doesn't really serve as the only stat the devs can look at.

 

 

Overall, I'm not a fan of your tiering. I think what the devs need to do (and have probably done) is use an algorithm that looks at our existing stat and generates a Match Making Rank from that. That match making rank is probably an integer, and results from an algorithm that they definitely don't want to post (players could game it, and whiners could point at some exploitable aspect and scream until the forums bleed).

 

The devs say it's fine. I believe them, because I often am in involved in the only match on our server. What's the matchmaking gonna do?

[SammyGStatus]

You're right -Win /loss would make sense as they would be a metric that more accurately reflects your general skill level. Thanks for educating me on WoW's PVP too. It just doesn't make sense to have a team full of vets vs a team full of newbs ever, except for premades, but premades should face other premades if they want to go that route, not decimate beginners. This isnt fun for peopl :/ 33/8/0 looks great, but unless I'm playing against top tier pilots, I'm not seeing anything