DUST Search - A Somewhat Complex Solution to Dust Matchmaking

Bormir1r wrote:

Maken Tosch wrote:

Bormir1r wrote:

One of the biggest flaws in your plan is that there are too many tiers to account for the current amount of players. While it is true that your idea would ease the transition for newer players into the more competitive stages of the game, there would just be too few players to allow any real growth. Larger divisions, such as 500k-1mil, 1mil-5mil, 5mil-10mil,10mil-15mil,15mil-20mil, 20mil+ would do a little better since you would have a greater pool of players in each division fostering a much larger amount of competition.

I don't buy the traditional argument about tiers not working with low player counts. Not anymore at least. The lack of tiered matchmaking is the very reason why we don't have a lot of players and that the only time we ever did have anywhere over 5,000 players in one single hour was during the patch release and during the Million Clone Challenge. And as I said before, my numbers for the tiers are just estimated based on the 10,000,000 SP metric.

However I would have to agree with you that maybe your numbers for tiered matchmaking would be better than mines. It's still within the reasonable 10,000,000 SP metric I mentioned. The only reason I made my tiers the way they are is that I was assuming if you were at 10,000,000 then you were already a protostomper by default.

I feel it will take a while after your method would be implemented before you could see the results you would be expecting. And by a while I mean up to a year.


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Maken Tosch DUST University Ivy League 7971	Posted - 2014.04.18 20:36:00 - [1] - Quote As of right now, Dust and Eve are completely different from each other in terms of how battles are handled. In Eve Online, you have ships roaming in an open-world environment without any restriction to fittings and SP. In Dust, there are currently no restrictions to fittings and SP for matchmaking but you are NOT in an open-world environment (you're in a lobby). Now the solution I want to talk about with you guys is a two-part idea that takes elements from Eve and mixes it up with elements from Dust. This way, this will appeal not only to those who want fair play but also those who want unfair play. This way everyone is happy. The first part of this idea is introducing tiered matches based NOT on gear but on lifetime SP instead. I will leave it up to CCP to make the final call on what SP each tier will look at but here are my ballpark estimates based on the metric that approximately 10,000,000 SP is roughly the amount needed to max out a single racial suit and core skills like Dropsuit Electronics and Dropsuit Engineering. One additional note. Please see my ideas regarding the Academy Overhaul that I brought up earlier. Assuming the academy has been overhauled, the following matches will be in tiers AFTER GRADUATING FROM THE ACADEMY. Academy Overhaul Link https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2044560#post2044560 First Part Tier 1: From 800,001 SP to 1,999,999 SP Tier 2: From 2,000,000 SP to 4,999,999 SP Tier 3: From 5,000,000 SP to 7,999,999 SP Tier 4: From 8,000,000 SP to 9,999,999 SP Tier 5: From 10,000,000 SP to Infinity This way, new players who just got out of the academy can slowly break themselves into the game and get use to the battles without getting completely protostomped from the start. By the time they graduate they would also be mostly familiar with a lot of the mechanics of the game and how each weapon feels. This is the setup that will likely appeal to players who want a fair match in a lobby environment. Since gear is directly tied to SP anyways, I felt this was the best way to go about it. But what about those who don't care for fair play and want to use everything they go from the get go? That's where the second part of this idea comes into play. Second Part Open-World Environment! This is where it gets really tough and where the challenge really begins. This is also a great place to use squads at the fullest potential. Because you are entering an open-world environment you will need to make the most out of anything you have. This environment needs to be made available also after graduating from the academy so that graduates have two options available. Join the harsh open-world or go fair-play lobby shooting. Players can switch any time they want. Anyways, back to the open world. There are some things to make this challenging for those who love a challenge and this will likely need planets to be completely open meaning that you are NOT restricted to a burn zone and are allowed to roam the entire terrain. Mobile CRUs will carry an X amount of clones in reserve and will be the only places (besides uplinks and the colony you start in) to spawn in. This will make great use of Medium Assault Vehicles if those MAVs ever get implemented in time. If you are not in a player-run corp or if your corp doesn't have a district for producing clones, then you can purchase mini clone packs that can fit on an LAV, Dropship, or MAV (not on HAVs). If you run out of clones, you'll need to dock up and replenish at the nearby NPC colony or use the colony as the only free source of clone spawning. If you are a lone wolf and can't afford a vehicle with a mobile CRU and clone packs, then the NPC colony will be your only source of spawning. Uplinks will only work if you have purchased a clone pack and have any clones remaining from it. This means you will have to start over from all the way back in the colony if you happen to die so many kilometers from the colony. Engagements are dependent on the security status of the system you are in which would be similar to that of Eve Online's security system. If you are engaged without provocation in high-sec, NPC police drones will arrive quickly to kill the aggressor and aggressor suffers sec status penalty (inside and outside the colony). If engaged in low-sec without provocation, only sec status penalty is suffered (only if in the colony). If in null-sec system, all bets are off as everything is fair game. You can choose to move from system to system if you can afford the travel. Much cheaper travel if you have an Eve player to pick you up. You will need to provide your own supply depots and stationary CRUs if you're going to establish camps outside the colonies. Hacking installations and vehicles that are not yours doesn't count as an illegal engagement even in high-sec. However, the owners of that property will be free to engage you without NPC intervention and without penalty for at least 15 minutes. Engagement timer will persist even after you die and respawn. Your merc quarters will be the only safe place to be in if you're unable to engage further. If you walk out that door with the timer still on you, you're a dead merc even if inside the colony. This is just out of my head though but this is the gist of what I'm getting at here. The point here is to allow an environment for both players who want fair play and players who don't care about fair play. This will also finally introduce the MMO aspect that DUST has been missing for a long time now and will further encourage teamwork and strategic play in the open-world environment. What do you guys think? What recommendations would you make that would make this two-part idea better? Dedicated Scout // Ninja Knifer Everything I know about the Caldari I learned at Nouvelle Rouvenor
Maken Tosch DUST University Ivy League 7973	Posted - 2014.04.18 22:05:00 - [2] - Quote A'Real Fury wrote: The idea is perfectly fine but I would say that it is probably beyond the abilities of the PS3 or even CCP at this point. With eve much of the static space is basically empty space that the ships fly through. However, on a planet there is very little empty space particularly for land bound mercs and even for dropships they are always flying over something. This will need a great deal of processing power to produce. You would also need to give people a reason for travelling around the planet instead of teleporting from point A to B to C e.g. mining sites, ancient ruins and npc enemies and loot i.e. exploration would need to become a central part of this open world environment. Beyond this CCP would also need to programme other ways of interacting with the environment beyond see and shoot. However, anything that makes this game more than a lobby shooter would be great. Actually I don't think this is even beyond the limits of the PS3 or even CCP. I think you're over exaggerating there. Dedicated Scout // Ninja Knifer Everything I know about the Caldari I learned at Nouvelle Rouvenor
Maken Tosch DUST University Ivy League 7975	Posted - 2014.04.19 01:32:00 - [3] - Quote bump Dedicated Scout // Ninja Knifer Everything I know about the Caldari I learned at Nouvelle Rouvenor
Maken Tosch DUST University Ivy League 7975	Posted - 2014.04.19 02:01:00 - [4] - Quote THUNDERGROOVE wrote: GunBunnie wrote: I think having vets in a game helps new players learn how to play. That said I think there should be a total SP cap per side that the MM should try to keep equal so that one side doesn't stomp the other. Personally I'd like to see some sort of bidding system where the player bids on how much ISK in gear they're going to use in the fight and lowest bid wins. Then you're capped at that isk value and have to use starter fits if you go over. The problem is, nearly every match I go in there are anywhere between 6-12 players who are in NPC corps who are completely unable to get as many kills combined as I get deaths. They're incompetent. Not only is it not fun for them to go 0/8 but it's also not fun trying to win when half your team doesn't know what a combat rifle is. And that's where it boils down to. The bad matchmaking and the incomplete academy that we have now are practically two parts of the same problem. Let me elaborate. One the one part, you have new players who don't know anything about anything joining already-tough matches where protostomping is the norm. Without any effective training, these new players will continue to get frustrated as they are protostomped fresh out of the academy. To compound that issue is the lack of test ranges where players can privately practice without anyone bothering them so they can get a handle of every weapon, vehicle, and module at their disposal. Without a test range, which the academy should be offering, players have no where to test their new fits without some redberry coming in to kill them or some selfish blueberry that wants to steal their ride. The second part of the problem is the lack of proper matchmaking that enables constant protostomping of new players in lobby matches which is not fair to the new players who are just weak in both SP and gear. That's like unleashing a rabid pitbull against a kitten. No competition there. The overhauled academy addresses the first part of the problem while the tiered system of matchmaking that I propose in my OP addresses the second problem. One would argue that we should just sort the matches by gear rather than SP, but the problem with that is that everyone's gear is already directly tied to their lifetime SP. If a player has 40 million SP but uses only MLT gear, he will be able to modify his fitting list to show only MLT fits and then sneak in the MLT matches and dominate the new players. Pseudo protostomping. By separating matches by lifetime SP, you limit the potential of any veteran player trying to sneak his way into the new-player matches so that new players can be on their own learning the ropes without some vet protostomping them. Dedicated Scout // Ninja Knifer Everything I know about the Caldari I learned at Nouvelle Rouvenor
Maken Tosch DUST University Ivy League 7975	Posted - 2014.04.19 02:03:00 - [5] - Quote lrian Locust wrote: Extremely cool concept, but I'm afraid this won't be realized in the next few years. Due to technical limitations and limited playerbase. What we need now is a quick fix to matchmaking, like discussed here: https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=156277&find=unread At the very least, the short-term solution (not so complicated) to the academy overhaul is something that I feel can be implemented in the next 3 months if CCP starts to work on it right now since they now have time to put it together, test, and then implement by the end of June or July and in time for summer vacation. Dedicated Scout // Ninja Knifer Everything I know about the Caldari I learned at Nouvelle Rouvenor
Maken Tosch DUST University Ivy League 7976	Posted - 2014.04.19 02:38:00 - [6] - Quote lrian Locust wrote: Maken Tosch wrote: By separating matches by lifetime SP, you limit the potential of any veteran player trying to sneak his way into the new-player matches so that new players can be on their own learning the ropes without some vet protostomping them. This would help, but other factors are more important to a good match. Good matches are the ones that are evenly matched, where both teams have a chance of winning until the very end. That's why matches should be focused on the win/lose ratio of the participants, factoring in the impact of squadding and the use of microphones. Imagine one team with a synched corps against a team of random blueberries without squads. The corps will always win, even if they'd have an SP disadvantage. But how do you factor in those players who free-load on the win/lose ratios? You know, those players who sit back and let your squad do the rest of the work? You usually call them AFKers. Dedicated Scout // Ninja Knifer Everything I know about the Caldari I learned at Nouvelle Rouvenor
Maken Tosch DUST University Ivy League 7977	Posted - 2014.04.19 02:45:00 - [7] - Quote Bormir1r wrote: One of the biggest flaws in your plan is that there are too many tiers to account for the current amount of players. While it is true that your idea would ease the transition for newer players into the more competitive stages of the game, there would just be too few players to allow any real growth. Larger divisions, such as 500k-1mil, 1mil-5mil, 5mil-10mil,10mil-15mil,15mil-20mil, 20mil+ would do a little better since you would have a greater pool of players in each division fostering a much larger amount of competition. I don't buy the traditional argument about tiers not working with low player counts. Not anymore at least. The lack of tiered matchmaking is the very reason why we don't have a lot of players and that the only time we ever did have anywhere over 5,000 players in one single hour was during the patch release and during the Million Clone Challenge. And as I said before, my numbers for the tiers are just estimated based on the 10,000,000 SP metric. However I would have to agree with you that maybe your numbers for tiered matchmaking would be better than mines. It's still within the reasonable 10,000,000 SP metric I mentioned. The only reason I made my tiers the way they are is that I was assuming if you were at 10,000,000 then you were already a protostomper by default. Dedicated Scout // Ninja Knifer Everything I know about the Caldari I learned at Nouvelle Rouvenor
Maken Tosch DUST University Ivy League 7977	Posted - 2014.04.19 02:48:00 - [8] - Quote Gaurdian Satyr wrote: I say no cause someone like me who wants to try everything in the game before he desides what he is do ing makes SP desipear quick cause id rather grind and earn my right to test items rather than by no skill militia.... 5 mill sp disappears and then the rest is gone just as fast try to spec into a desnt item that you want I'm going to assume that English is not your primary language perhaps. But I don't see why you should disagree with this idea. From what I understand on what you're trying to say, what I propose gives you the ability to test out every weapon in the test ranges (see my academy overhaul idea) while at the same time give you options to either protostomp to your heart's content or play fairly til you're bored. Also, SP doesn't disappear. What are you talking about? Dedicated Scout // Ninja Knifer Everything I know about the Caldari I learned at Nouvelle Rouvenor
Maken Tosch DUST University Ivy League 7977	Posted - 2014.04.19 02:52:00 - [9] - Quote Bormir1r wrote: Maken Tosch wrote: Bormir1r wrote: One of the biggest flaws in your plan is that there are too many tiers to account for the current amount of players. While it is true that your idea would ease the transition for newer players into the more competitive stages of the game, there would just be too few players to allow any real growth. Larger divisions, such as 500k-1mil, 1mil-5mil, 5mil-10mil,10mil-15mil,15mil-20mil, 20mil+ would do a little better since you would have a greater pool of players in each division fostering a much larger amount of competition. I don't buy the traditional argument about tiers not working with low player counts. Not anymore at least. The lack of tiered matchmaking is the very reason why we don't have a lot of players and that the only time we ever did have anywhere over 5,000 players in one single hour was during the patch release and during the Million Clone Challenge. And as I said before, my numbers for the tiers are just estimated based on the 10,000,000 SP metric. However I would have to agree with you that maybe your numbers for tiered matchmaking would be better than mines. It's still within the reasonable 10,000,000 SP metric I mentioned. The only reason I made my tiers the way they are is that I was assuming if you were at 10,000,000 then you were already a protostomper by default. I feel it will take a while after your method would be implemented before you could see the results you would be expecting. And by a while I mean up to a year. You're talking to an Eve Online player. To me, one year is a moment. But I get your point. As I said before, the academy overhaul (the short-term solution at least) is something that should be viable in 3 months if CCP starts on it right now. Dedicated Scout // Ninja Knifer Everything I know about the Caldari I learned at Nouvelle Rouvenor