Is it time to reduce the minimum required # of participants for a match?

[Nemarus]

Right now, I think a lot of the matchmaking issue comes from trying to build full 8v8 (or 12v12) matches from a limited population.

 

I think reducing the numbers required for a match would make a big difference in both queue speed and matchmaking quality. It might even relieve some current ship balance concerns.

 

I see no reason why a compelling TDM (using the current maps) couldn't be played with as few as 3v3. In fact it'd make Sensor and Communication Range exceedingly important.

 

Shrink the maps size and points-to-win down and you could even do quick and compact 2v2 or 1v1 matches.

 

But at the very least, 4v4 TDM should be allowed.

 

As for Domination, I think 6v6 would play just fine.

 

Even as low as 4v4 could work in Domination, especially if you scaled the points-to-win down based on group size. The team with two nodes would have one defender on each node and two floaters who could attack or defend. The team with one node would have one defender on their node and 3 floaters.

 

And I suspect that with fewer ships per team, multi-role and support ships (like Strikes, T3 Scouts and Dronecarriers) become even more compelling. And stacking any specialized ship type (Gunships, Minelayers, Scouts) becomes more risky. This is assuming Battlescouts are nerfed such that they no longer outclass Strikes as multi-role fighters.

 

Seems like a simple fix that could mitigate some of our current matchmaking/queue woes.

Edited June 4, 2014 by Nemarus

[SammyGStatus]

100% behind this. I'm gonna copy paste this in suggestions

[General_Brass]

The question isn't "Is it time ?", the question is "is it too late ?"

 

If this were put in, It would have to be a no groups allowed setup., and no additional reward penalties.

[Slivovidze]

Denon is too huge even for 12v12.

 

I admit that I like 8v8 battles more, but I wouldn't go below 6v6 for both TDM and Dom.

 

Further reduction would require shrinking the maps - kinda like designing new ones, or designing varieties for different game modes, which is probably not gonna happen with the zero manpower assigned to GSF after 2.8.

[Nemarus]

100% behind this. I'm gonna copy paste this in suggestions

 

Actually, the more I think about it, this might just lead to Battlescout dominance. :/ They are the best multi-role fighter. If they didn't have armor piercing, Strikes might be a contender.

Edited June 4, 2014 by Nemarus

[SammyGStatus]

Hmmm.... I think scouts would present a difficult opposition, but a strike can do just as well... GSs may have a bit of trouble versus 4 scouts at once, but that's why we have teammates Stacking anything other than strikes or scouts would become silly though... Although maybe a GS stack in a 4v4 wouldn't be as bad as stacking 4 bombers

[Kalphitis]

Actually, the more I think about it, this might just lead to Battlescout dominance. :/ They are the best multi-role fighter. If they didn't have armor piercing, Strikes might be a contender.

 

It obviously would have its flaws, but I support reducing game size. Especially your original statement about 4v4 teams having a better chance at better matchmaking and more fair games. Most TDM games boil down to who can kill the other team's newbie 2-shippers the most to win, while the veterans on each side more or less ignore each other because they know how to fly evasive and avoid being killed quickly.

 

In order for this to work though, 4v4 matches would have to select 8 players of similar level....and given what we know about the current matchmaking system, it would pretty much require a complete overhaul of the system to make it work right.

[Magira]

Could you do. For just as the max halving group size. Otherwise, the proposal will only lead to a further advantage for Premades detriment of PUGs.

[Nemarus]

Could you do. For just as the max halving group size. Otherwise, the proposal will only lead to a further advantage for Premades detriment of PUGs.

 

No.

 

By requiring only 4 people per side, the matcmaking system has a lot more flexibility to balance opponents.

 

For example... let's say we have 24 players queued up, in groups of (4 aces), (4 aces), (4 aces), (1 ace), (4 decent), (3 decent), (2 newbs), (1 newb), (1 newb). Let's approximate the skill level of an ace as "5 points", the skill level of a decent as "2 points" and the skill level of a newb as "1 point".

 

In today's world, the matchmaker goes, "Oh! 24 people queued! Who cares about skill--let's put them all together!"

 

The best case is that the sides will be like this:

 

Team A

(4 aces)

(4 aces)

(2 newb)

(1 newb)

(1 newb)

 

approximate skill level: 20 + 20 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 44 skill points

 

vs.

 

Team B

(4 aces)

(1 ace)

(4 decent)

(3 decent)

 

approximate skill level: 20 + 5 + 8 + 6 = 39 skill points

 

Already, there's a disparity of 5 points. And that's before you consider the fact that Team A's 8 aces are all in premades. Team A is going to win this handily.

 

Now let's imagine the matchmaker was allowed to create 4v4 matches.

 

The first match it would create is a 4v4 between two of the 4-ace premades, (4 aces) vs. (4 aces).

 

Now it has 16 players left: (4 aces), (1 ace), (4 decent), (3 decent), (2 newbs), (1 newb), (1 newb). It can either make one 8v8 match or two 4v4 matches.

 

If it makes an 8v8 match, it should match them like this:

 

Team C

(4 aces)

(2 newbs)

(1 newb)

(1 newb)

 

approximate skill level: 20 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 24 skill points

 

Team D

(1 ace)

(4 decents)

(3 decents)

 

approximate skill level: 5 + 8 + 6 = 19 skill points

 

Uh oh, this isn't any more balanced than the 12v12 would've been.

 

So instead the matchmaker decides to abandon its attempt to make an 8v8 and build another 4v4. It puts the (4 aces), (4 decent) aside and then creates a match like this:

 

Team E

(1 ace)

(2 newbs)

(1 newb)

 

approximate skill level: 5 + 2 + 1 = 8 skill points

 

Team F

(3 decent)

(1 newb)

 

approximate skill level: 6 + 1 = 7 skill points

 

That one should be pretty close.

 

Now all that's left are the (4 aces) and (4 decent). The matchmaker might decide to just hold them in the queue and wait until better opponents arrive. Or it might throw them into a match against each other. The aces will almost certainly win that match, yes ...

 

... but which is better... having three 4v4 matches of which only one is unbalanced? Or having one 12v12 which is certainly unbalanced? Better to screw over just 4 people instead of 12, right?

 

This is a hypothetical scenario with hypothetical values, but it's one the matchmaker needs to be able to handle. If it can make 4v4 games, the matchmaker has far more flexibility to create a better experience for more players (especially new players).

Edited June 4, 2014 by Nemarus

[Gerfaut]

I like this idea a lot. Not just because it would speed up queue times and allow for better matchmaking, but also because games with fewer total participants allow each individual player to have more impact on the outcome of the game. Currently, the worst imbalanced games are usually 12 v 12. When a decent player gets stuck with 11 inexperienced and/or mediocre players against better opponents, there is not much he can do all by himself. In Domination, it is easy for 12 good players to 3-cap and hold a 3-cap for the entire duration of the game, while blockading the enemy cap ship at the same time. It is harder to hold a 3-cap in an 8 v 8 game, as long as the opposing team has at least one or two good players, and it would be even more difficult in a 6 v 6 or 4 v 4 game.

 

When I get stuck with 7 2-ship newbies in an 8 v 8 domination game and we get 3-capped, I will go attack A (or C, whichever has fewer people defending it), kill the turrets, maybe kill whoever was there and start capping. If I'm lucky, I can even finish the cap before reinforcements come and I get overwhelmed, at which point I head for the opposite end of the map (C if I was at A) while the enemy are re-capping the sat I was at previously. Again, I kill the turrets and attempt the cap until people show up and kill me. Rinse and repeat. Occasionally, the newbies on my side will get the right idea and come to the sat I just capped and we will actually hold it. I can't win all by myself but I can actually accomplish something and earn a decent amount of reqs for the game.

 

When I try this in a 12 v 12, there are so many enemies available to counter me (either "floating", blockading our cap ship, or split up with 4 defending each sat), that I usually get killed before I can even kill a single turret. I've had 12 v 12 games where I ended up with 0 objective points and less than 300 reqs, because I couldn't leave the cap ship without getting 5 or 6 enemies on my tail. Most of the newbies just gave up and sat at the cap ship (or didn't hit the respawn button) and waited for the game to end. This would be impossible in a 6 v 6 or 4 v 4 game. In a 4 v 4 domination game, it would only take 2 good players to win the game for their team. They wouldn't even need to be in a premade together or anything. Individual skill would matter more.

[TrinityLyre]

Actually, the more I think about it, this might just lead to Battlescout dominance. :/ They are the best multi-role fighter.

 

I like the idea for the matchmaking benefits but this seems like it would devolve into a battlescout arena fairly quickly. I'd also be worried about how TDM power-ups would work in a 4v4, how Domination matches would devolve right back into pre-bomber-era node-humping, and why anyone would play a support ship when there's even less players to support.

Edited June 4, 2014 by TrinityLyre

[Magira]

No.

 

By requiring only 4 people per side, the matcmaking system has a lot more flexibility to balance opponents.

 

 

There is no matchmaking. Just a simple FIFO list.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

Actually, the more I think about it, this might just lead to Battlescout dominance. :/ They are the best multi-role fighter. If they didn't have armor piercing, Strikes might be a contender.

 

Until battlescouts multi-role capabilities are nerfed so that they are very noticeably inferior to a striker small matches would just devolve to the 2.5 days of scout dominance (since you'd be less likely to have a team running bombers there would be less of a threat to scouts attempting to cap sats).

 

The trouble I think here is that, short of removing all scouts AP options, I don't think you'd be able to nerf it to the point where they wouldn't be superior to a striker in a small match. Even if pods were the only AP option you'd be dealing with so few enemies odds are you wouldn't be running into enough enemies/situations where the cost of having pods instead of clusters would be enough of a draw back to favor strikers (in contrast to large, target rich, matches where you'd encounter a pure dogfighting build with clusters where pods might become a liability). Since battlescouts are 1 of the few ships to have a CM variant you could easily build one with BLC + clusters for normal size matches and a quads and pods build for small 4v4 matches.

 

More importantly, the mobility of a scout would be essential to make up for having so few players if you wanted to successfully defend/attack a sat (2.5 demonstrated quite clearly that strikers lack the mobility to quickly respond to efforts to cap sats and rush to reinforce any existing defenders). Between that, scouts having any AP, and being the best dogfighters in the game means they'd always be better than a strike in a small match unless a team decided to field bombers at the cost of not having the mobility to respond to threats that a scout/strike team has. And I'm not really sure bombers would fare well here since they'd have a minimal (possibly no) escort with so few team mates.

[Verain]

I think small queues could be good for ranked play, and not much else.

 

You could make a 5v5 map probably. But 3v3 would have serious issues, and the ship archetypes just aren't set for 1v1. You can't really go below 4 anyway, because that's the queue size, and the last thing we would need would be separate queues (unless one is ranked and therefore actually useful).

[General_Brass]

I think small queues could be good for ranked play, and not much else.

 

You could make a 5v5 map probably. But 3v3 would have serious issues, and the ship archetypes just aren't set for 1v1. You can't really go below 4 anyway, because that's the queue size, and the last thing we would need would be separate queues (unless one is ranked and therefore actually useful).

 

LOL, yep god forbid people would have a queue without premades. Would hate to deprive you of those matches you claim to hate.

Edited June 5, 2014 by General_Brass

[Lyshar]

There is no matchmaking. Just a simple FIFO list.

 

There is a matchmaking though, a severely flawed one. A FIFO list would be an improvement as right now the system tries to match individual squads of 4 as more or less balanced. And apparently tries to match the teams separately as more or less balanced.

 

Careful now, I say individual squads, there are 4 or 6 of those in a match. With this proposed option this would be reduced to 2, but the problem would still exist.

 

Somehow the matchmaking matches mostly less upgraded on one team and upgraded on the other, then the next match it's reversed. I've ended up with 7 more or less new players that usually don't even know how to boost against 8 max amount ship people, only to have the match after on the same character be in the opposing situation. This isn't something that happens on occasion, it happens pretty much every time! It doesn't even matter if you're against the opposing faction or the same, still happens just like this.

 

They should change the matchmaking to make the first squads of both teams match, the second teams, and the possible third teams. Unless they do that it won't matter for balance if they add 4v4 matches or not.

 

Now more on the original topic...

To get faster matchmaking would be good to get people to queue more, but I don't think it matters if the developers don't want to take a serious look at the matchmaking. If they work on matchmaking more people may be interested in playing, which will reduce wait times.

 

I'm often waiting half an hour in queue during peak times only to be back filled because someone couldn't handle losing, several times of those I loaded onto the score table so didn't even get any rewards. Doing searches has shown me there are matches going on, other people getting back filled. Adding a 4v4 might help with that, but it's only a band-aid on a severed limb, so won't do anything long term.

 

I've talked to people in game about it and everyone I did agreed that it's more fun to lose a balanced match than to fall asleep winning. Those matches are too rare and that's what's hurting the game, right now it's hard for me to be motivated to do more than the dailies (saving up requisition items for the new ships next week at least).

 

Hopefully the double rewards next week help out.