Galactic Starfighter (GSF) Suggestions

[cheese_cake]

Boy does this thread keep getting resurrected.

 

No one is stopping others from grouping too. There would be more competition if more people did that instead of leaving a match when placed against better pilots or worse -self destructing to not give others who do want to try a chance. The mental logic of making the situation worse for your team while benefiting players you hate/dislike is just galaxy brain worthy.

 

image related: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/377920985841664011/676903561237364736/gsf_galaxy_brain2.jpg

 

Unranked warzone PvP-ers do not get as salty about groups as GSF-ers. The primary reason a particular group lacks competition is because decent or otherwise self-proclaimed decent pilots give up before trying. Sure going up against a monumentally tough opponent is demoralising, but the lack of willingness & effort to do what you can should be addressed as well.

 

If the problem really is groups, then the group size could be reduced. However, the concept of a premade is a scapegoat for the pains voiced in this thread. Even people pairing with only one other friend get slammed with the same hate. Why must others be punished for wanting to play with friends when one refuses to play with friends of their own, improve their play, and dismiss criticism by invoking defensiveness without irony.

 

I think a more interesting question to ask if why groups provoke such strong reactions in GSF, but not warzones. If we can tackle that, perhaps we might solve the underlying issue of complaint. /edit -I looked through the Warzone forums. Complaints about groups revolve around being placed with a clueless (not necessarily weaker) team, and an adamant refusal to group. Hmmmmmmmm.

Edited February 11, 2020 by cheese_cake

[sharpenedstick]

Boy does this thread keep getting resurrected.

 

No one is stopping others from grouping too. There would be more competition if more people did that instead of leaving a match when placed against better pilots or worse -self destructing to not give others who do want to try a chance. The mental logic of making the situation worse for your team while benefiting players you hate/dislike is just galaxy brain worthy.

 

image related: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/377920985841664011/676903561237364736/gsf_galaxy_brain2.jpg

 

Unranked warzone PvP-ers do not get as salty about groups as GSF-ers. The primary reason a particular group lacks competition is because decent or otherwise self-proclaimed decent pilots give up before trying. Sure going up against a monumentally tough opponent is demoralising, but the lack of willingness & effort to do what you can should be addressed as well.

 

If the problem really is groups, then the group size could be reduced. However, the concept of a premade is a scapegoat for the pains voiced in this thread. Even people pairing with only one other friend get slammed with the same hate. Why must others be punished for wanting to play with friends when one refuses to play with friends of their own, improve their play, and dismiss criticism by invoking defensiveness without irony.

 

I think a more interesting question to ask if why groups provoke such strong reactions in GSF, but not warzones. If we can tackle that, perhaps we might solve the underlying issue of complaint. /edit -I looked through the Warzone forums. Complaints about groups revolve around being placed with a clueless (not necessarily weaker) team, and an adamant refusal to group. Hmmmmmmmm.

 

The question is not can other people also group. Of course they can. But rather, it's "are premades good for GSF?"

 

Now, of course, that question is largely rhetorical, because we all know it's not good for GSF. Premades are not elevating play. They're not making queues faster. They're not encouraging competition. Everyone knows this. In fact, it's exactly why people make premades. Not to test "steel against steel." It's not to find these epic 49/50 or 1000/999 games against other elite teams. It's to roll PUGs 50 to 2 and 1000 to 7.

 

Comparisons to WZs are inappropriate because WZs draw their players from a much larger base. GSF has more narrow participation to begin with, and its learning curve (even without premades) is sufficient to prevent any more than modest growth. Add to that the natural attrition of MMO players and Bioware's failure to support GSF with new content, new rewards, new story elements, etc...

 

The simple question for all the premades is what's more important to them? Easy wins, or the health of GSF? The defensive screeds we get from premade players makes the answer clear.

[DakhathKilrathi]

The simple question for all the premades is what's more important to them? Easy wins, or the health of GSF? The defensive screeds we get from premade players makes the answer clear.

 

Groups haven't killed GSF (or significantly impacted the health of the game in any appreciable way) in the full SIX YEARS it's been out. The only thing that matters - the only thing that has ever mattered - is server health overall.

 

As I said earlier in the thread and every time this argument comes up: the complaint is that people who can beat you are playing. You're asking people not to play. If you got what you wanted with groups, it would be something else.

 

I'm a solo player almost all of the time and I hate the state of the current meta because of a couple of super broken abilities + the general cluelessness of the player base. But groups aren't the problem and never have been.

 

This is such a tired discussion.

 

do the people who keep posting this argument even read what anyone has said about it before they post or what because it's always the same thing over and over and over

Edited February 12, 2020 by DakhathKilrathi

[cheese_cake]

Well first and foremost people group to play with friends.

 

GSF is a team game. Matches are 8v8 or 12v12. It is possible to queue as a group of up to 4 players. To be successful required concerted coordination with one's teammates. This could mean flying to where help is needed, peeling for a teammate, or focusing a high priority target. Grouping with others in essence elevates competition by improving one's team coordination. Grouping is a means for individual players to improve their play together. Grouping also makes more strategies and ship builds available -both contribute to the breadth and depth of the game (just look at all the GSF guides created by groups). This is how grouping improves the competition and health of GSF. The community and health of GSF is dependent on the collaboration of players, not segregation.

 

Improving the competition of the GSF should involve more players grouping to improve their play as a team, not knocking groups that want to improve together down for the benefit of people who refuse to group. Testing "steel against steel" without grouping in a team game is akin to competing with a crutch.

 

As you clearly pointed out, the GSF community is small. This is why separate queues will do more harm than good. If anything we should be pointing at the matchmaker for creating imbalanced teams that result in lopsided matches.

 

So you claim that groups are more damaging than beneficial to GSF. What what ways?

• Self-destructors

• Players leaving at the start or middle of matches

• Verbally abusing other players

• Players not queuing

 

Players not queuing is within their right. & while it does reduce the pool of players, it does not appear to slow queues down. Queues still pop back to back and multiple matches occur with or without the presence groups. There should be a penalty for leaving a match after accepting it. I may be wrong, but isn't there one in warzones? I know flashpoints and operations incur a queue lock.

 

Why are the other things the fault of players who group and not the individuals that commit such acts? It is not as if the game does not allow grouping & some players managed to exploit the queue such that they'd always end up in the same team.

 

Are there other acts that I left out?

 

Is the problem with all groups or just groups that perform better than others?

[sharpenedstick]

 

As you clearly pointed out, the GSF community is small. This is why separate queues will do more harm than good. If anything we should be pointing at the matchmaker for creating imbalanced teams that result in lopsided matches.

 

So...unbalanced teams are bad?

 

I'm confused that you think so, since premades exist solely to create them.

 

At least we've advanced in one particular. None of these defensive premade players any longer deny they make their groups to stomp PUGs. It's refreshing that they've dispensed with the lie that they're just trying to find other elite competiton.

 

Are premades the only problem GSF has? No

Are they the biggest problem? Probably not

 

In fact, I explicitly said this in my first reply, before you all started the "MAKE YOUR OWN PREMADE LOLOLOLOL" gibberish.

 

But the reality is premades are bad for GSF. Don't want to split queues? Fine. Get rid of premades then.

 

Not being able to make youtube videos of your 1000 to 3 wins is a small price to pay for better, faster and healthier queues.

[cheese_cake]

By latching onto a fragment of a statement & twisting it to fit your beliefs and agenda, you have displayed a lack of ability and willingness to earnestly discuss the issue. I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt and replied to you seriously, but you refuse take yourself seriously.

 

Matchmaker creates imbalanced teams regardless of groups.

[Drakkolich]

At least we've advanced in one particular. None of these defensive premade players any longer deny they make their groups to stomp PUGs. It's refreshing that they've dispensed with the lie that they're just trying to find other elite competiton.

 

Not being able to make youtube videos of your 1000 to 3 wins is a small price to pay for better, faster and healthier queues.

 

Hey just thought I'd pop in here and let you know that I play in a group to fight other groups, the best GSF games are premade vs premade ones, where you have to coordinate with your team better then theirs to win. While one sided games are definitely a side effect of looking for those games, it's also the only way I can find them.

 

As for the Youtube videos, most of my videos are premade vs premade games actually, and I've always strived to put up the best games of each day up there. However much to my surprise the "stomps" as you call them are my most watched videos, they're actually what people want to see apparently. To that effect I'm planing on adding more videos in the coming months of just simple games where I do well since that's apparently what people like to watch more.

[sharpenedstick]

By latching onto a fragment of a statement & twisting it to fit your beliefs and agenda, you have displayed a lack of ability and willingness to earnestly discuss the issue. I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt and replied to you seriously, but you refuse take yourself seriously.

 

Matchmaker creates imbalanced teams regardless of groups.

 

No, the plain fact is you're unable to reconcile the incompatibility between your positions, and between them and reality.

 

It's quite simple. Are imbalanced queues an issue?

 

If so, then you should support measures to reduce their occurrence. Sure, eliminating premades isn't going to fix the problem on its own. That's because premades aren't the only issue. But since premades don't produce balanced queues, eliminating will help.

 

If you reject solutions because they don't solve everything, you won't accept anything.

 

Put another way, what do we lose by eliminating premades other than curbstomps?

 

Queueing with friends? Sure. The three people, in the world, who queue up with a few friends will just have to sacrifice that to get rid of a fair proportion of the 1000 to 4 stomps, and their sacrifice will be remembered with honor.

Edited February 12, 2020 by sharpenedstick

[DakhathKilrathi]

It's quite simple. Are imbalanced queues an issue?

Not because of groups.

 

Put another way, what do we lose by eliminating premades other than curbstomps?

Better question: does removing curbstomps and premades from the game affect the health of the game at all? In six years of playing, my experience is no. Queues depend on server population and time of day.

 

Would better matchmaking be nice? Absolutely. But removing premades isn't going to make the matchmaker any better.

[Drakkolich]

Queueing with friends? Sure. The three people, in the world, who queue up with a few friends will just have to sacrifice that to get rid of a fair proportion of the 1000 to 4 stomps, and their sacrifice will be remembered with honor.

 

This line really is enlightening, the fact you think there are that little premades playing.

 

Even if my team were the problem you're making us out to be, (which I absolutely disagree with anyways) there are so many other people out there that play in premades that you'd be forcing to not play the way they enjoy. There are entire GSF guilds on different servers that play together. Just recently I found out about a guild on Tulak hord that is over 25 members strong that constantly play in 4 mans often filling up over 50% of games with just their guild in games.

 

You also have Vermillion/Iota Squadron on Darth malgus which has just a huge population of members and always encourage everyone to never fly alone.

 

On Starforge we have multiple premades I see all the time and to top it all off Verain and I run a GSF Groupfinder discord which is 65 members strong now which is exactly what it sounds like, it's a place for players to find other players to group with and discuss group strategies.

 

 

I hope this makes you rethink how you view the word "premade" in the future. In the end this is all a matchmaker problem, currently it's supposed to match every one in a group to the highest players matchmaking rating in that group. However it's obviously not working properly because we often will see teams with 2 premades on the same damn side, which should never happen if it was working properly. You aren't actually against premades, you're against the matchmaker you're just directing your rage in the wrong direction.

[sharpenedstick]

Not because of groups.

 

Groups produce imbalanced queues. Imbalanced queues are bad.

 

BUT

 

I want to pwn noobs. So groups good.

 

Error to compute. We can hear the gears grinding all the way from here.

---

I don't know how to multiquote, so I'll just say I've seen Drak's stream, his youtube and him and his stomp squad in game.

 

Yeah, sure, they don't want 50 to 4 wins. That's why they take them constantly. It's like they'd love for nothing but 49 to 50s, but why can't they get them? What are they doing wrong? How is piling up all the good players on one team, in coordination and voice chat (though they mostly just shoot the breeze now, because, you know, stomps) resulting in these matches?!

 

IT'S A MYSTERY FOLKS!

[DakhathKilrathi]

I want to pwn noobs. So groups good.

 

I mean I'm a solo player. Ask anyone. Try again. And try addressing my points this time.

 

 

also who cares if they want to win who doesn't like winning what kind of nonsense is that

Edited February 13, 2020 by DakhathKilrathi

[Wildtee]

By latching onto a fragment of a statement & twisting it to fit your beliefs and agenda, you have displayed a lack of ability and willingness to earnestly discuss the issue. I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt and replied to you seriously, but you refuse take yourself seriously.

 

Yeah, I don't think he's actually that sharp of a stick.

[sharpenedstick]

Yeah, I don't think he's actually that sharp of a stick.

 

I'd like to be embarrassed for you, but I know this is literally the best you can do, and you spent all day at the keyboard trying to come up with it. So instead, I'll just say "good job, never give up your dreams!"

[DakhathKilrathi]

I'd like to be embarrassed for you, but I know this is literally the best you can do, and you spent all day at the keyboard trying to come up with it. So instead, I'll just say "good job, never give up your dreams!"

 

psssssssst

 

 

you forgot to answer me again

 

i can link my post if you need it

[Wildtee]

I'd like to be embarrassed for you, but I know this is literally the best you can do, and you spent all day at the keyboard trying to come up with it. So instead, I'll just say "good job, never give up your dreams!"

 

Eh, you tried. I'd give this a 2. The best part is accusing someone of being at their keyboard all day when you've been trying to forum pvp in this post for over a day. It's adorable.

[Verain]

Groups produce imbalanced queues.

 

Ok two things. First, honestly, citation needed. I see tons of extremely imbalanced games in solo queue. Some of them are imbalanced just because I am in them, assuredly a common enough thing for many veteran pilots. Others are imbalanced just because that's how the cookie crumbled. By contrast, there are a tons of really close games when queued as a group- often because another group will be placed as our opponent. You probably don't know that, being that you don't know how to group, so you are already less likely to even be in the game that has less need for solo queue fillbodies.

 

So I don't think this is even true. If is is true, it's not noticeably true.

 

 

Imbalanced queues are bad.

 

Now, moving on to the meat of this- are imbalanced queues even bad? For this, I'm assuming that the first statement- which there's no evidence of- is actually true. So with that hypothetical out of the way....

 

It is good that the weaker teams lose that is literally the point of competition

 

The game gives you the ability to team up and be the stronger team. The more people do this, the better games everyone has. The fewer people do this, the worse games everyone has. A good game is not determined solely by the scoreboard, in any event.

 

I want to pwn noobs. So groups good.

 

You team up to "pwn" everyone. Sometimes you lose, usually you win. All the games are fun. You learn to support your teammates in tough games, figure out how to pair your strengths and cover your weaknesses. If the enemy can't put up a fight, you push them back to their spawn and farm them efficiently, which is not a competitive game, but it's still great to shoot them with blasters.

 

Grouping is the intended and best way to play this game. We have a discord for finding groups, the GSF Groupfinder Discord ( https://discord.gg/f2VvPB5 ). It took awhile, but it seems like it is actually serving its function of helping players who want to group, find groups.

 

Error to compute. We can hear the gears grinding all the way from here.

 

You are just mad because all of these things are true:

1)- You can't beat teamwork.

2)- You aren't willing to find a team.

3)- You want the game redesigned to exclude those who are willing to go through the effort of playing it as intended, to cater to your more casual and limited playstyle.

 

(1) is ubiquitous and (2) is common. What makes you so willing to try to get the rules of the game changed to your benefit and the detriment of other players is (3). That's the part that is so frustrating to so many of us, because it just wastes so much time.

 

I don't know how to multiquote, so I'll just say I've seen Drak's stream, his youtube and him and his stomp squad in game.

 

Great!

 

Yeah, sure, they don't want 50 to 4 wins. That's why they take them constantly.

 

I mean, I want the 50 to 4 wins. I want all the wins. Sure, the really excellent premade matches are excellent, but they are all great.

 

It's like they'd love for nothing but 49 to 50s, but why can't they get them?

 

Scoreboards don't make good games. But we do have plenty of very close and excellent games, and you'll find plenty of them on Drako's youtube channel. So no, we don't have a problem getting good games, or getting close games. But we certainly get stomps in between those, and hey, those are great too!

 

 

How is piling up all the good players on one team, in coordination and voice chat (though they mostly just shoot the breeze now, because, you know, stomps)

 

Wait, now we're being called out for having a good time with friends in voice.

 

Oh, the horror!

Edited February 13, 2020 by Verain

[Verain]

Would better matchmaking be nice? Absolutely. But removing premades isn't going to make the matchmaker any better.

 

While he's dodged this inartfully, the fact is, matchmaker has real difficulty making good matches (with or without premades obviously, exactly as you say), and while I think pretty much everyone is in agreement on this, maybe we need to make more noise about it. It has been quite awhile since we saw the last changes to matchmaker, and while the last two big changes (crossfaction and the combination of "matchmaking based on legacy" plus "groups of N are treated as N copies of the toughest matchmade player") assuredly helped, is anyone thinking that we're anywhere close to peak matchmaker?

 

When we play as a group, and another group is on, we definitely face them more than half the time. How often should it be, though, that we end up on the same team as them? 10%? That seems fine. But it feels more, like at least 30%.

Many of the players who walk into these threads and ask for "balanced games" do so with the assumption that matchmaker works great as long as there aren't those pesky groups messing everything up. They're wrong, of course, but shouldn't matchmaker be a decent bit better than it is? When I queue solo, no premades are required for matches to be decided before the game starts, and I'm sure you've seen the same. This should happen, of course, but should it happen as much as it does?

 

Like many GSF things, it's a difficult thing to bring up, because it attracts so many useless comments. Much like how a decent number of people would like a small nerf to proton lockon time, but if you make a thread about it everyone comes in and demands gunship nerfs or that strikes be deleted or whatever.

 

I don't know what matchmaker does in the background, but I would like the devs to add "have it do a little bit more" to the list of "eventual GSF things". I know nobody can afford to screw it up, but it just seems like something that could get a bit cleverer, and really needs to.

[sharpenedstick]

I

 

also who cares if they want to win who doesn't like winning what kind of nonsense is that

 

You've already conceded the central point with that line. What more is there to talk about?

 

Either you're for more balanced queues, or you're not.

[DakhathKilrathi]

You've already conceded the central point with that line. What more is there to talk about?

 

Either you're for more balanced queues, or you're not.

 

uh huh

 

I'm going to repeat the very last point in my previous post, since you didn't (and haven't) address(ed) it:

 

GSF is a group game. You decide whether or not you want to choose who is in your group. You don't have to, but you will be in a group regardless. Matchmaking is essentially RNG, so even if what you are suggesting was reasonable (and it's not), it wouldn't work.

 

 

To the second post: The idea that games played or components mastered means anything at all about a player's skill or ability is, frankly, absurd. As mentioned previously. The game already does what you're suggesting, though probably in a way that's better implemented. It still doesn't work because those are silly metrics.

 

I am hopeful that those of us as a player base can come up with constructive ideas on how to better one aspect of our enjoyment that we derive from SWTOR, which is Galactic Starfighter!"

 

We have suggested an idea for that, that we as players can implement: we can form groups! It's pretty easy, and makes up for bad matchmaking.

 

Notable: I say this as a dedicated and stubborn solo player. I wish solo was less frustrating, but I don't blame the groups for this problem.

 

tell me again how i don't want more balanced games

 

but like

 

actually have a way to back it up when everything i've said shows clearly that i do, in fact, want to see more balanced games

 

in other words: actually respond to the points i have made instead of just attacking me as a player

Edited February 13, 2020 by DakhathKilrathi

[phalczen]

I don't know what matchmaker does in the background, but I would like the devs to add "have it do a little bit more" to the list of "eventual GSF things". I know nobody can afford to screw it up, but it just seems like something that could get a bit cleverer, and really needs to.

 

Should matchmaker take into account "skill," "experience," both, or neither?

 

There was a brief discussion somewhere recently about the merits and shortcomings of win percentage as a general, albeit imperfect, measure of "skill." Accuracy scores could also be a general measure of "skill," and is far less dependent on team dynamics. Can (kill+assist)-to-death ratios, again imperfect, also be used (i.e. a person who can get hits in but is reckless and dies a lot is less skilled than the player who can get hits in AND avoid being downed)? Can DOM medals be used (wins absorb DOM performance, but accuracy and K-D ratio may be less important or telling)?

 

If any or all of the above four examples are used as indices of "skill," should they be weighted equally, or selectively? Should they be normalized or corrected for the relative balance of DOM v TDM across a pilot's legacy?

 

I think using "requisition spent on ships on your bar" serves as a somewhat reasonable correction factor to account for a veteran pilot playing on brand spanking new stock starfighters. Should this be weighed equally with the skill factor?

 

And if this ends up being translated into some numerical score, should each member of a premade be counted individually in determining team makeup pre-pop invite, or should the system remain as is counting the highest member of the group for all four members?

[Drakkolich]

Should matchmaker take into account "skill," "experience," both, or neither?

 

There was a brief discussion somewhere recently about the merits and shortcomings of win percentage as a general, albeit imperfect, measure of "skill." Accuracy scores could also be a general measure of "skill," and is far less dependent on team dynamics. Can (kill+assist)-to-death ratios, again imperfect, also be used (i.e. a person who can get hits in but is reckless and dies a lot is less skilled than the player who can get hits in AND avoid being downed)? Can DOM medals be used (wins absorb DOM performance, but accuracy and K-D ratio may be less important or telling)?

 

If any or all of the above four examples are used as indices of "skill," should they be weighted equally, or selectively? Should they be normalized or corrected for the relative balance of DOM v TDM across a pilot's legacy?

 

I think using "requisition spent on ships on your bar" serves as a somewhat reasonable correction factor to account for a veteran pilot playing on brand spanking new stock starfighters. Should this be weighed equally with the skill factor?

 

And if this ends up being translated into some numerical score, should each member of a premade be counted individually in determining team makeup pre-pop invite, or should the system remain as is counting the highest member of the group for all four members?

 

Now this is how you start a conversation about the right thing!

 

Alright so let's unpack a little, you ask if it should use "Skill" or "Experience".

 

Well it's already using Experience however I'm pretty sure there is currently a cap on it and that needs to be much higher if there is one. It often feels like anyone with atleast 1000 games played is being counted equally by the matchmaker and that just isn't high enough in my opinion to just experience, we have players that have over 15000 games played in the gaming pool.

 

Next up Skill, I believe we do need to use some metric for Skill, however it needs to be carefully implemented so that players can't abuse how the matchmaker sees them. This is why I'm so in favor of only using Win% because at the end of the day it's the only metric you can't abuse.

 

 

I'm gonna throw a few examples at you on how some of the metrics you proposed could be very easily abused.

 

Let's start with Accuracy, this one is very popular, many people think we could simply add accuracy to the matchmaker to judge players skill. Now what happens when a player wants to abuse that, he simply spends entire matches empty full magazines of rapid fire lasers into mid air, now even though he might have a high win% his accuracy is like 1% and his overall matchmaking rating is going to go down leading to him being able to mess with the system.

 

Let's look at kill death ratio, you have the same problem as accuracy any game in which the player is winning, they can just throw them selves at a wall repeatedly simply to lower their matchmaking rating.

 

Now onto Medals in Domination, this one is one of the worst in my opinion. What this one does is reward players for winning by doing the least objectives possible. If I win and get 17 medals and you win and get 3, my matchmaking rating goes up by more then yours. Meaning in the future you'll get better teammates then I will simply because I contributed more in my matches. This is the exact kind of thing we REALLY want to avoid.

 

The same idea happens with Kills+Assists, If we're winning a game and one person simply decides to stop attacking players they'll get an advantage in the matchmaker.

 

 

This is why I weight Win% so importantly above all the stats at the end of the day it's the only statistic you can't "game". You either try as hard as you can to win the games or you don't. If you're losing games on purpose to try to get better teams to win games down the road well that just doesn't make any logical sense.

 

 

Last up, you talked about how the numerical score would translate to every player on the premade or if everyone was adjusted to the highest player. I'm very torn on this subject, while I do like the system in place that uses the highest players "matchmaking rating" to determine how to make teams, I also really don't like how it affects relationships of players that have very different skills levels.

 

For example, I have a few friends that aren't great at the game but enjoy playing none the less, if they come group with me, my ridiculous matchmaking rating puts them at a huge disadvantage because the game considers them way higher then they are. It forces them to choose wether they want a better chance at actually winning matches and playing with players at their level or playing with a friend.

 

Now having said that, I believe in the long run, matching up to the highest rated player of the team will lead to better matchmaking so I've come around to liking it more as of late. I just kind of wish we had a better solution you know.

 

Looking forward to hearing your response Phalczen.

[Verain]

Should matchmaker take into account "skill," "experience," both, or neither?

 

I think it should try to find "skill at turning the game into a win". If you can't create a variable that is close to that, then you want to use things like wins over losses, total games played, most mastered ship on current bar, legacy, that sort of thing- basically what it does now, plus W/L.

 

There was a brief discussion somewhere recently about the merits and shortcomings of win percentage as a general, albeit imperfect, measure of "skill."

 

The merit of this stat is that it is mostly non-cheesable (you can't cheese it in the Wins direction, and cheesing it in the Losses direction results in you losing- you'd need to watch for people who would queue up and afk or float-bot their way to a loss, much as games like League of Legends already do, but you'd probably not need nearly the effort put into it that they have), so selecting for that will be pretty effective. It's not that this is the best stat conceivable, it's merely the best stat we have now.m Obviously, a character with less than 200 games isn't going to have a good way to extract predictive value from this stat, but plenty of players are at far more than 600 games, and their win/loss will definitely have some relation to how well they play. It's not perfect, of course- if you play 10 solo games right now, your own personal skill will likely affect the outcome of one to three of them. Some wins would be a win without you, some losses couldn't have been turned even if you were a walking god. But it's definitely a good measure.

 

It also becomes a great measure the more someone groups, as it's the only metric we have right now that is VERY noticeable for groups. A solo queue player with a thousand games and a 70% win percent seems to be signalling his skill to the game engine as hard as he can, but the game engine doesn't listen- the distance between 40% and 70% seems to be the greatest information that a solo queuer provides to matchmaker (that matchmaker currently ignores). By contrast, group queues can achieve rates from 85 to 98%, and surely matchmaker could figure out more stuff from this than it does.

 

Accuracy scores could also be a general measure of "skill," and is far less dependent on team dynamics.

 

This stat is a lot more cheesable. First, cheesing accuracy in the "accuracy" direction is pretty simple. If someone is at the edge of your arc, don't shoot at them. The reason this is annoying is because it's usually correct to throw 10 shots at someone with rapidfire lasers or whatever, because the shots cost you nothing, and they hurt the enemy, but if you are looking at accuracy rates, this is punishing correct play. Second it's easy to cheese with other things- a gunship will have a much higher accuracy than a scout, and anyone focused on only taking shots they don't miss will have a uselessly stat full of worthless puffery. It's also trivial to cheese in the opposite direction- right now you can just exhaust your battery on the way to a node and still have plenty of juice when you need it, and you can really get your accuracy stat low.

 

The issue here is that whenever you use a useful value as a metric, it becomes no longer a good metric, unless it's something that can't be cheesed.

 

Examples abound: if I tied your raise to how many type-C forms you fill out, because I know that every customer request yields a type-C form, and I notice that the harder workers help customers more, and I want to increase the amount of help customers get and reward workers who help customers, I'll be flooded with superflous type-C forms. I'll see things that would have been on one form suddenly spread out to four forms. I may even see fradulent type-C forms. I can crack down, but all I'm doing is selecting for the better Type-C Form Spammer/Scammers. The real issue is that my data- the number of type-C forms- was only useful as long as the observed population didn't know I considered it a metric. Since that's inevitable over a long enough time, it really means that I couldn't have used it as a metric.

 

With the game on live right now, I can guarantee every game ends with an accuracy of above 90 or below 10. Just tell me what I'm going for, you know?

 

Can (kill+assist)-to-death ratios, again imperfect, also be used

 

Maybe but not really. First, the reward for being high rated has to be assumed to be a universal good, because if player P has a motivation to tank his rating, you just gave him a motivation to self destruct, and he sure can do that. So if you are using it for matchmaking, it's a total non-starter, because some people will want to have a poor rating (they will SD, costing them nothing in their heads, in order to get what they really want, which is matches that they can win), and suddenly they have a trivial way to accomplish that.

Secondly, even if everyone was motivated to make it as high as possible, you suddenly have cases where one team tries to make it so that everyone gets a tag on the enemy, and another team does no such thing. If a team wanted to cheese (K+A)/D, they could do so by maximizing A. You can envision a metric behind the scenes that isn't so trivial to manipulate, but it would be a lot of work, and if discovered, it would likely be cheesable too.

 

Can DOM medals be used

 

Players don't focus on medals because there's not a huge reward for them, but look at how strange a player who happens to be chasing medals for an achievement behaves. "Give them a node, I need to farm demolisher" (so they need a node to spawn turrets), followed by "let me kill the turret plx I need" and "don't be near node want turret to spawn". Or the player farming healing medals by sc****** their hull down to 80%, waiting for it to heal off their drone, and repeating.

It would also be reasonably simple to scam medals in a downward direction.

 

If any or all of the above four examples are used as indices of "skill," should they be weighted equally, or selectively? Should they be normalized or corrected for the relative balance of DOM v TDM across a pilot's legacy?

 

If you really just have the existing stats, you'd want a large emphasis on W/L, and a small emphasis on everything else. By making it clear that accuracy has only minor weight, players are less likely to try to scam it, etc. If you put pressure in every direction, a player might have to play really terrible to tank their match-making number, or play really well to increase it, and that's a functioning system.

 

But you wouldn't want the existing stats. When people look to do ELO rankings in chess or whatever, or ranked warzones in this game, they don't use "medals gained in warzones" or "number of pawns promoted", they use wins and losses, and develop numbers based off of that. Once you have a ranking number, you can do stuff like "this guy is about 1200 goods, and he's up against someone who is 1750 goods, I bet the second guy will win, and we can rig the rewards so that the 1200 guy stands to lose little and gain much, and the 1750 guy is the other way around". But no one is going to figure out superflous stats like "average number of turns to checkmate" or "number of piece-points given up" and build anything on that.

 

I think using "requisition spent on ships on your bar" serves as a somewhat reasonable correction factor to account for a veteran pilot playing on brand spanking new stock starfighters. Should this be weighed equally with the skill factor?

 

Different. First, requisition needs to count ONE ship- the highest one. It can't average, it can't total. Take the highest ship, ONLY that one counts. That's what it does now, and that's fine.

You can matchmake on this a little, because a player in half mastered best ship will be a little bit less effective than one with a mastered top ship. It isn't a lot, but it's something you can predict and it won't be fully in the player's control. It's ok to have this one.... a little bit.

 

And if this ends up being translated into some numerical score, should each member of a premade be counted individually

 

Not really. The current system does this because it needs some first order approximation to model that grouping is better than not. If you actually had a real matchmaking system, you would probably also come out with an average in a group that is angled towards the highest member. The current logic (the best guy counts as four copies of himself) would be greatly feared if matchmaker were highly competent and aggressive right now- if a highly ranked pilot joins your group, suddenly you wouldn't be able to get a game you could win, with that logic. Some games have spent some time screwing this up, where they have a functioning matchmaker and they are too punishing towards groups of mixed skill, leaving good players only ever willing to group with each other, or face an unwinnable match.

 

But as it is, with matchmaker not having the power to do that, the current system is fine. But you would definitely change it if you were doing matchmaker super correctly, it's just a fast approximation that is better than not having anything right now.

Edited February 13, 2020 by Verain

[depeshmood]

It's nice to see that my idea to open up discussions for how to improve the balance for GSF is keeping traction. I have seen a few suggestions and/or ideas on how to overall improve matchmaking, which is great.

I do hope that the devs could revisit and better refine how matchmaking works. It is something that can actually be felt for both warzones and GSF, but I am really only focused on getting improvements for GSF.

 

I still think that it would be great if there were more game modes, like the ground warzone 4v4, for GSF.

 

If only there was a way to know whether or not devs, @EricMusco or @DanielSteed for example, could chime in as to whether or not this would be something they'd even consider revisiting or if we've just been aggravating each other because I asked another player to start this discussion.

[Drakkolich]

It's nice to see that my idea to open up discussions for how to improve the balance for GSF is keeping traction. I have seen a few suggestions and/or ideas on how to overall improve matchmaking, which is great.

I do hope that the devs could revisit and better refine how matchmaking works. It is something that can actually be felt for both warzones and GSF, but I am really only focused on getting improvements for GSF.

 

I still think that it would be great if there were more game modes, like the ground warzone 4v4, for GSF.

 

If only there was a way to know whether or not devs, @EricMusco or @DanielSteed for example, could chime in as to whether or not this would be something they'd even consider revisiting or if we've just been aggravating each other because I asked another player to start this discussion.

 

Honestly as long as it's a serious back and forth discussion I just enjoy talking about GSF. It's always good to hear different opinions and sometimes it leads to new ideas or strategies. (not strategies in this case since we're talking about matchmaking)

 

I mean a 4v4 mode for GSF could be cool, I just don't think it should be on the current maps, we'd need like a seperate game mode for that in my opinion. Having played a bunch of 4v4 Death match in Custom games, the strategies can get pretty degenerate currently and the maps are often just a little too big for 4v4's. Now when doing it for fun in Customs it's still hella fun and would encourage many players to give it a shot because you learn so much from those small scale battles, teamwork becomes even more important somehow.