That's the aspect we desperately need to fix.

I disagree with your first point and probably think the second point be bracketed for the moment.

First, I think many players who squad together will have inflated Mu scores. It is much more difficult to run solo. If one or two players squad constantly with two other players who are much better than them, then the prior will appear to be better than they are. I, for one, used to squad with people who had much more SP than I did (still do, in fact) yet was able to use them to score much more warpoints than I would have if I were alone. Would have been a rude awakening when I squadded alone after that. I think such experiences are essential to FPSes.

Second, I think that we should implement a ranking algorithm before adding certain provisions to it (such as, a certain player's score in relation to those of other players in a given match implies that this player ought to receive x-times Mu points for it). To me, adding a ranking algorithm at all to Dust will better the experience of the game so much that whether it is rudimentary or not means less than whether it is introduced ASAP.

Then this confuses me even more. "Most" (I guess) Dust players are veterans which means their Mu value would have had plenty of time converging to a reasonable value. Then, how come we have the loopsided matches we have today?

Personally I think it's good to get as far away as possible from Win/Loss ratio to determine player rank, since it does not really work with the current Dust mechanics/mentality. In my experience, the motivation to win is not as high as the motivation to preserve ISK. Since the ISK awards are not that different between winning and loosing, players tend to "give up" using high end gear, and/or switch to redline sniping if they see they are getting stomped, giving further disadvantage to the entire team.

I don't think a loss should give less ISK than today, but there should be further benefits of winning even in public matches. If we get that, I think players will push more for the win.

Your other point, the distribution around 25, is just the fact that relatively new players outnumber the old players, that's just how the online business is, we have a very long tail, just like EVE, but only a small part of all the new blood retains for years.

But you also have lobbies for adv/proto or you could go to FW/PC and also it would be squads vs squads so it would be better than what it currently would be

Also academy would be extended by a large amount of WP like 100k or more but dust is easy to learn anyways

MU score is broken as ****

You stomp or get stomped there is no middle ground, squads dont even fight each other they end up on the same side the vast majority of the time

Gear based, everyone on same level, SP has a say but skill is needed more, cant break out the proto suit if a noob wipes the floor with you

So my question is what could be factored in to prevent really high scoring players from lowering their Mu without isk loss? (Afking as a squad in an MCC to help their team lose for 0 warppoints?)

Player behavior in past games have actually shown this to be a serious issue even in games with massive player pools (halo 2 had such rank system)

While I don't mind good players mixing it with the bad players and good players getting stomped to lower their ranks I do mind if they are doing it at no cost or activities that rob others of game content.

Well if their Mu goes down by doing that, then they will get easier opponents next time, which is probably what that person wants. I would just want to implement a punishment for AFKing and leaving battle, like moba games.

This isn't really something that worries me right now, ie players gaming the matchmaking system. Any system can be gamed, the WP/s can easily be gamed by simply not doing anything for a few matches. But people who do that, will never ever play by any rules and game anything, so we just have to live with that (and them).

Thanks for the feedback, and ISKdestroyed/ISKlost is something I need to calculate as well, it's not as accessible but I should be able to dig it up and correlate with these. It's just the problem that that is such a slayer concept, and completely negates hacki scouts, and reppy logis, and so forth.

Slept on it, and one last bit of feedback for you Rattati.

I'm not sure if its possible at the moment (i.e. requires a UI update) but... if you could somehow show players their own -¦ score that would also be a big driver for personal performance. In games like SC2 and Hearthstone and primarily pvp games like those, watching your own -¦ score rise and fall from game to game is a huge driver for better performance. If this could make it into the character sheet perhaps? Its something to consider at least.

o7, its low priority and no one will be that upset if you can't get it in but it would be kind of cool. I won't lie, my inner troll would love to lord it over some people on the forums lol.



I think I agree with Rattati though, people will game the system no matter what. Its a facet of human nature. Although, do you think people would try to game the system to get a high -¦ score? If so.. then they elevate themselves in matchmaking to a point where they are against (theoretically) skill enough players to equalize whatever metric is used. If you think they will use it game themselves downwards... that will happen whether or not you can see your own -¦ score.

it has a lower correlation because of the low Mu bump in the chart, prompting my redline sniper theory. Any thoughts on that?

90 degree turn guys

I am wondering where the overlap of squads and skill lies.

Let's discuss in 2 categories, where A is a beast and B is "normal"

Will a single A win 3B's or even 6B's

1A vs 2B
1A vs 3B
1A vs 4B
1A vs 5B
1A vs 6B
2A vs 4B
2A vs 5B
2A vs 6B
3A vs 5B
3A vs 6B
4A vs 6B


Please answer with your gut, Y/N on each.

Sigma mu would be a number of standard deviations that a player's mu is from the total population's average mu.

Don't worry about the A/B thing too much, I was just wondering. Maybe I should have put it differently.

If you want to win a battle, would you prefer the squads of A or B on your team

1A vs 2B - 1A
1A vs 3B - 1A
1A vs 4B - 4B
1A vs 5B - 5B
1A vs 6B - 6B
2A vs 4B - 2A
2A vs 5B - ?
2A vs 6B - ?
3A vs 5B - 3A
3A vs 6B - 3A
4A vs 6B - 4A


what I am trying to see is when does relative quality outweigh the "multiplying" power effect of a squad

Why not just a win loss ratio?
this will promote team play squading and running with your corp.

Makes sense to me. Lots of good points on squads too. I think using Mu will probably be a big improvement on the current system regardless of how it's implemented.


The only thing I don't see any of these proposed solutions fixing is this situation. A player quits game or loses connection when their team is doing badly (MCC is nearly destroyed, team has almost no clones or team has objectives). I get deployed to this game. In this situation I'm basically being handed a loss that affects my stats but also isn't my fault.

I'm not sure how to fix that besides just letting the losing team lose. I don't mean for all games but if they have 4 clones left and the winning team has 150 there is no way I should be put in that battle. Most of my time will be spent connecting, earning a loss before spawning, viewing the stats, going back to headquarters and having to get into a new match.

Little bit of a tangent but it's directly related to "Player Statistics, their Rank and Matchmaking" so I thought I'd add it. It would also help improve Mu since Win/Loss ratio would be more accurate.

wow instead of getting good yall waste your time doing math. I like match making getting addressed for new players but others that have been here longer since uprising have no excuse and some are just flat out shielding themselves away from competition.