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[Suggestion] Reduce Squad Size

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Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 4 post(s)
Vitantur Nothus Nos Nothi 1640	Posted - 2015.01.12 01:27:00 - [1] - Quote It'd help Scotty in more ways than one. * Better matchmaking * Better fights * Better NPE * Fewer stomps * Fewer stompathons * Shorter queue times If drawbacks exists, do they outweigh the benefits?
Vitantur Nothus Nos Nothi 1641	Posted - 2015.01.12 02:41:00 - [2] - Quote pumping up wrote: Stomper will just qsync. At which point team-building steps in and serves the fairest fight possible. Sync'd stomp squads would more often than not be pitted against one another. They'd only be placed together if team-building rates the opposing force sufficiently competent to oppose two high-Mu squads. In both cases, the odds of a fair fight are higher than today's.
Vitantur Nothus Nos Nothi 1667	Posted - 2015.01.12 20:29:00 - [3] - Quote Ashley Swift wrote: If squads are brought back down to a 4 player maximum then I would yet again be in disbelief that CCP could ruin this game any further. If you suggest ideas like this then you need to stop playing Dust, get off the forums, and deactivate your Twitter. Rattati, don't even consider this. Care to elaborate?
Vitantur Nothus Nos Nothi 1667	Posted - 2015.01.12 20:59:00 - [4] - Quote Ashley Swift wrote: ... and now unobtainable orbitals. This seems a perfectly valid concern. Assuming orbital tables were revised to accommodate a reduced squad size, what other concerns would you have?
Vitantur Nothus Nos Nothi 1678	Posted - 2015.01.13 13:04:00 - [5] - Quote Kain Spero wrote: I worry if you try to sub-divide too much then you end up with pools of players too small for the match maker to really do anything with. Dust currently only has the concurrent player population to run 40 to 100 matches at any given time. ^ This. A wee 'bit tiresome to play with and against the same mercs, match after match. This (as well as long queue times) can already be observed during off-peak hours. Further partitioning the player base would exacerbate these issues.
Vitantur Nothus Nos Nothi 1690	Posted - 2015.01.13 19:43:00 - [6] - Quote @ SirManBoy Casuals, small squads, soloists, newbros, mercs trying to earn Isk. Non-stompers, new and old alike. These too have the right to an enjoyable gameplay experience. Being fed to "party boy" stompsquads match after hopeless match is not enjoyable; it isn't even playable. Stomps should be a rarity; not the norm. We need to fix this, which means fixing matchmaking. The surest path to better Scotty performance would be to reduce squad size to 4. This would give Scotty a higher count of squads to work when matchmaking (theoretically, 50% more), while simultaneously diluting stompsquad potency, such that equitable opposition can be found. Fairer fights would be served far more reliably. Pubstomps would become far less common. I don't think there's any question about this. It would work. Alternatively, we could hold stompsquads in queue until Scotty finds another to pair them against for a glorious, high-stakes battle. This an inferior approach, in my opinion, as there only so many 6-man stompsquads available at any given time. The odds of meeting the same opponent over and over again are high. The odds of extended search times are high. These are only two options I can conceive. What other options do we have?
Vitantur Nothus Nos Nothi 1691	Posted - 2015.01.13 20:03:00 - [7] - Quote SirManBoy wrote: 1. War barge strikes become even less frequent with 4-man squads. 2. You can't earn ISK in FW. 3. FW compensation doesn't account for individual match performance. 4. FW stores don't have all of the gear that you need, especially if you are a loyalist. 5. How perfect does the matchmaking have to be before I can deploy into a match? Will my 8-man squad or 16-man platoon be forced to wait around in queue for an equally powerful opponent? 1. Easily fixed by adjusting orbital scales. 2/3/4. Play pubs with 3 of your pals instead of five. There's still a good chance you'll win through superior Molon Labe teamwork and tactics. Your odds of facing fodder for opposition will simply be lower. 5. FW team deploy does seem improbable.
Vitantur Nothus Nos Nothi 1721	Posted - 2015.01.14 15:51:00 - [8] - Quote In Response to Tesfa Alem 1. * Better matchmaking: Blaming squad size for dust's current troubles is ludicrous ... What is the evidence for this claim? Squad size has everything to do with today's matchmaking failures. When Scotty fails to find competent opposition for a large squad of vets, we get a pubstomp. Today, pubstomps are as common as good fights. This is evidence of a problem. 2. How will smaller squads of my friends who average between 30 million SP prevent the types of new players who run Sniper starter fits in Ambush getting into our matches? Is it not reasonable to assume that newbros are less to blame for a given pubstomp than the pubstompers doing the stomping? If Team Building is working properly, newbros will find themselves onto either side of a match and effectively cancel each other out. 3. * Better fights: Outright bullshit. Never in my time playing dust have i said, 'you know, if i only had two less friends then this match would run better." In fact its the opposite, smaller squads mean more reliance on people you don't know and can't communicate with, the smaller squad i run with the worse the matches become. Not at all BS. When Scotty succeeds in pairing equally competent forces against one another, we get a good fight. When he fails to do so, we get a stomp. There a finite number of squads (and stompsquads) available to Scotty at the time of matchmaking. Increasing that number gives Scotty a larger pool to work with, which in turn increases the probability that he'll serve a good fight. Further, a decrease in squad size translates to a decrease in Max(Mu) potential, which again increases the probability of a good fight. 4. Carrying 16 people with a 6 man squad > carrying 14 people with a 4 man squad A single squad carrying its side to victory should be a difficult undertaking but is not cause for concern. A single squad all-but-guaranteeing its side a victory match-after-match represents a serious matchmaking problem. When Scotty does his job well, the odds of winning or losing a given match are near 50:50 and winning has more to do with "teamwork" than "squadwork". 5. How can you tell, player side, that stomps are directly related to squad size? But to any player who wasn't in our squad it looks the end screen makes it look like a bunch of random blueberries got together. And thats how it is for 99% of my matches,lots of of buddies run in all differnt corps and channels, and there is no way for anybody to tell exactly how many people were in one squad without cheking the team selection during the match. If you can't reliable know who was in a squad or not at the end of the match, how can you tie squad size in of itself to a stomp? It isn't difficult to make a mental note of the players who've stomped a match; they tend to be at the top of the leaderboard. Further, the odds of encountering the same players again and again over the course of a couple hours are pretty high. Even a dimwitted player like me can spot a pattern if it's put-in-face a sufficient number of times. 6. * Shorter queue times: Played enough matches solo to know that this simply isnt the case. In fact, i usually have shorter ques time the more people I squad up with, because we have 6 people at a time gearing up for a match and not waiting for one or two slots to be filled. Optimization dictates that we place the biggest pegs first then fill in around them with progressively smaller pegs; this likely explains your observation. Making the biggest pegs smaller is more likely to accelerate process time than extend it.
Vitantur Nothus Nos Nothi 1736	Posted - 2015.01.14 22:06:00 - [9] - Quote Atiim wrote: changing the squad sizes from 6 to 4 will do very little (if anything) to reduce stomping in Public Contracts. Four players (assuming competence) are very capable of stomping PUBs to the same difficulty (or lack thereof) as a squad of 6 players can. Two teams are in warbarge awaiting deployment into battle. 1) If Team A has 16 more veterans than Team B, what are the odds that Team B will be stomped? 2) If Team A has 8 more veterans than Team B, what are the odds that Team B will be stomped? 3) If Team A has 1 more veteran than Team B, what are the odds that Team B will be stomped? 4) As the difference in veteran count between Team A and Team B decreases, do the odds of a stomp increase, decrease or hold constant? Bonus) If Team A is guaranteed X ultimate slayer beasts and Tean B is guaranteed none, does the probability of Team A stomping Team B increase or decrease as X nears zero? (assumes X is positive number between 16 and 1).
Vitantur Nothus Nos Nothi 1742	Posted - 2015.01.15 00:37:00 - [10] - Quote 1. Good to moderate odds 2. Less than moderate odds 3. Lesser odds still * Both the probability and severity of stomp decline as the difference in veteran count declines. 4,5,6. Assuming vet squads are equal, outcome depends on the composition and performance of remaining forces.

Vitantur Nothus Nos Nothi 1745	Posted - 2015.01.15 05:27:00 - [11] - Quote @ Voidfaction There's no reason to put words in Atiim's mouth. Doing so is neither fair nor is it constructive. We'd do well to hear him out so we can better understand his concerns.
Vitantur Nothus Nos Nothi 1751	Posted - 2015.01.15 13:24:00 - [12] - Quote Imp Smash wrote: Soraya Xel wrote: Imp Smash wrote: This is what y'all stickied? Seriously? https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=183512 smh. I think he stickied the one that was much closer to what had been proposed and discussed internally. That's why. The one that (at the time of stickying) lacks a reason? OP posted a good point before yet forgot to put it into this thread's original post. Or the one which has a title that the Devs are hoping the community will get behind? <.< It's lazy and when discussing such an important issue laziness will not do. The OP of this thread lists positive effects of reducing squad size. Reasons "why" can be found throughout the body of this thread, your thread, and a handful of other threads wherein the conversation has come up and reasons "why not" have been less than forthcoming and/or developed. The original purpose of this thread was to pose to the community "why not" in an attempt to better understand the resistance to something which would very likely benefit gameplay.
Vitantur Nothus Nos Nothi 1765	Posted - 2015.01.16 15:03:00 - [13] - Quote In Response to Tesfa Alem, Part II (Point #1, continued) Tesfa: Pubstomps is not about squad size its about SP disparity. Squadsize changes does nothing to adress this, annd make the game less fun. Vitantur: Pubstomps are about SP disparity and squad size. A squad of six veterans unopposed by other veterans will always stomp a match; a lone veteran will not. Squad size, maximum SP disparity, and stomp probability share a direct relationship. As squad count grows, maximum SP disparity grows; the same pattern is observed when squad count declines. As for making the game less fun ... if one's idea of "fun" is to stomp match after match unopposed, then yes, fun would be in shorter supply; if a good fight against like opposition sounds like "fun" then fun would be in greater supply. Tesfa: You are also assuming anybody who hasn't played dust for more than a few weeks hasn't firgurd out how to get in a squad, and over looking the benefits of looking after new players in a mixed squad of vets and noobs. Vitantur: I have made no assumptions or claims whatsoever on training squads or groups of newbros. My focus remains on the veteran stompsquads who are at the heart of matchmaking failure. Reducing squad size does not eliminate the stompsquad; rather, it expands upon their population. The greater the population of stompsquads, the higher Scotty's odds of pairing them against one another for good, balanced fights. (Point #2, continued) Tesfa: You are avoiding the question, how will my squad of four (or soon to be two squads of 8 ques sync) be pitted aginst other vet instead of noobs. ''but there is only 4 of you in one squad now'' means nothing, i can run solo now and still be surrounded by NPC corps, i can 4 man squad and still have a bunch of blueberries running around. Its just and off the wall claim, that has no foundation in reality. Vitantur: Given a sufficient population of pegs, Scotty and Team Building do a fairly good job of splitting the pegs into even piles. When it can work, Mu seems to be working. This is why we get better fights during peak hours. (Point #3, continued) Tesfa: So, pairng groups of 4 noobs against groups of 4 vets will solve 6 noobs against 6 vets this...how? Besides, good fights are about how much of the entire team is willing to fight for the win. Vitantur: We know that Mu isn't based solely upon squad count, and we know that Team Building attempts to counterbalance against a high-Mu squad of veterans. The odds of successfully counterbalancing against 4 veterans are higher than the odds of successfully counterbalancing against 6. Effort does make for better fights, but so do balanced sides. (Point #4, continued) Tesfa: Its a matchmaking problem not a ''you have more friends than me'' problem. Vitantur: Indeed, we have a matchmaking problem. (Point #5, continued) Tesfa: You can make a pattern out of anything, you still have no proof to back it up. You need to show: How do you determine who is squaded with who? How many of each name you see again is in the same squad? How many players per squad? What is the SP level of each player? Otherwise, you are litterally just pulling this entire concept out of thin air. Vitantur: Why prove what is logged? Here is a better question. Is it easy or difficult to reliably predict the outcome of a match before it begins? In Response to Tesfa Alem, Part I
Vitantur Nothus Nos Nothi 1768	Posted - 2015.01.16 21:07:00 - [14] - Quote xAckie wrote: ... you are removing the point of an RPG: investing time into creating/ building a character - this is supposed to be a key difference to other FPS' ^ Exactly this. Homogenizing the playerbase would make matchmaking easier, but to what end? It would detract from what makes Dust unique and devalue player investment. There'd be no satisfaction in the grind if you ended it largely as you began, or were forbidden to use whatever you picked up along the way. We can achieve the goal of fairer fights without making everyone more alike.
Vitantur Nothus Nos Nothi 1796	Posted - 2015.01.18 00:21:00 - [15] - Quote What makes a subset of players "happy" isn't always the best for balance.
Vitantur Nothus Nos Nothi 1805	Posted - 2015.01.18 17:24:00 - [16] - Quote In Response to Tesfa Alem, Part I In Response to Tesfa Alem, Part II In Response to Tesfa Alem, Part III (Point #5, continued) Vitantur: Why prove what is logged? Tesfa: And this answer right here sums it all up. Well, if your are going to claim something you have to prove it. If your repley to a question about where you proof is "its logged in a computer somewhere so i don't have to say anything" to me says the "debate" with you is over. Vitantur: I cannot prove (nor is it my function to prove) that a relationship exists between pubstomps and stompsquads. That doesn't mean that stompsquads aren't stomping matches; nor does it mean that your proof doesn't exist. We know that pertinent match details are stored server-side. Let's assume you and I were somehow able to access that data. If we were to analyze a sample of stomped matches, do you think we (you and I) would find evidence of a relationship between pubstomps and stompsquads? Or do you suspect we'd find proof to the contrary, namely, that no relationship whatsoever exists? In which of these cases do you think it more likely we (you and I) would return from our analysis and report to the masses: CCP Rattati wrote: I think it [the 4 man squad] is one of the simplest way to alleviate pubstomping
Vitantur Nothus Nos Nothi 1819	Posted - 2015.01.19 13:43:00 - [17] - Quote Tesfa Alem wrote: 1. If you can't prove it [stompsquads stomp matches] dont claim it. 2. To answer your question, Since stomping is about High SP vs Low SP I'd work on breaking that up first. The first thought in my mind seeing squads of 40 million SP players fighting 5 million SP players is "what are they doing paired against each other?" rather than "Since players have figured out running in a squad improves the odds of winning, lets reduce the squad numbers for everyone and leave the 40 million SP vets against the 5 million SP players" 1. When did it become a prerequisite to back one's observations with scientific proof? It is the job of the forum-savvy player to report patterns observed in battle; more often than not, the more overt patterns are found to be substantive. Take, for example, "the post 1.7 HAV is a wee-tad too good" or "the post 1.8 Scout is out-assaulting the Assault". Such observations weren't backed by statistically significant samples, but they were nonetheless based in fact. These observations are no different from "pubstomps are a wee-tad too common". 2. "The reason this is a viable matchmaking aid is because it helps spread out the vet players over both teams. Its easier to place vets in blocks of 4 into a situation where they will be opposing each other instead of all on the same team. 6 man groups, the SP is too concentrated. This dilutes it across both teams." - Regis Blackbird
Vitantur Nothus Nos Nothi 1820	Posted - 2015.01.19 14:12:00 - [18] - Quote Echo 1991 wrote: Yet they want 8 man squads for FW. Meaning squads can stomp a lot easier in FW. Squads size isn't the problem. The gloves come off in FW and PC. For a more casual experience, queue for a public contract. Public Contract: * Matchmaking gives a best effort at evenly-sided teams * Odds of win:loss are near 50:50; odds of stomp are minimized * Ideal for the soloist or small squad FW / PC: * Matchmaking plays little, if any, role * Odds of win:loss or stomp are determined solely by participants * Supports squads up to 8 and/or team deploy * Interact with and impact the greater Eve universe
Vitantur Nothus Nos Nothi 1838	Posted - 2015.01.20 15:00:00 - [19] - Quote Quote: 4 man squads from Closed Beta Dust has changed since we last saw 4 man squads. The players have also changed. In Closed Beta, a seasoned merc may have had an SP headstart on a newbro of 1M SP; the combined SP gap of this veteran's "stompsquad" would have been a maximum of 4-5M SP over that of a newbro or newbro squad. Today, that gap can quite literally reach into the 100s of millions. If we think of this SP gap in terms of weight, today's stompsquads are both larger and many times heavier than yesterday's.
Vitantur Nothus Nos Nothi 1839	Posted - 2015.01.20 16:13:00 - [20] - Quote voidfaction wrote: derp Looks like you'll be needing more than rubber bands: https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=187538&find=unread

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