alten hilt
DUST University
Ivy League
7
   |
Posted - 2013.05.08 16:40:00 -
[1] - Quote
I think the best way to improve the matchmaking is to have a lot of different types of matchmaking so players can jump around and find the type of match payout that best accommodates their individual play-style and goals. You know...a Sandbox.
Maybe you are like ALM1GHTY STATIUS and the Imperfects: the only thing you care about is padding your KDR. You only run in full prototype squads, only play matches against disorganized teams, and will back out of matches when the opposition is as good or better than you. Well, there should be a match type that allows you focus on your KDR at the cost of ISK efficiency. There are plenty of players that want to be ISK efficient, and will die 10 times just to kill you once. 10.5 KDR and rising doesn't matter to them, but a 10.5 ISK efficiency ratio does matter to them.
1. Enable many types of match making and let players choose. In the end, you will attract a much larger playerbase, the playerbase will be happier, and DUST 514 will become the first true sandbox FPS.
2. Focus the killboards and leaderboards around something other than KDR. KDR is an okay measure of player performance, but DUST has so many other useful metrics. Warpoints per death, ISK destroyed vs. ISK lost, profit per match (ISK gained vs. ISK lost). The EVE Universe is based around economic warfare, not death. Move DUST to a similar metric and I think it will help incentivize different playstyles.
3. Make War point rewards and Skill Point gains relative to the SP of the players involved. If you are a high SP player, you gain almost no SP and WP from killing new players. If you are a low SP player, you get massive SP rewards from killing high SP players. If you kill a player close to your SP level you gain normal WP and SP. You can pad your KDR if you want, but you will sacrifice SP, WP and rewards to do so. A rocket scientist is unlikely to gain much rocket science knowledge from a College undergrad, but the college undergrad can learn a lot from the scientist.
4. Differentiate between individual matches and squad matches. ie. load individual players into matches with only other individual players. Players in squads will be matched up only with other squads.
5. Isk capped contracts. Have matches organized into tiers. Tier 1 matches are unrestricted and offer the best rewards, best war points, best leaderboard results, etc. Tier 2 matches allow fits up to x amount of ISK, Tier 3 matches allow fits up to y amount of ISK, all the way down to starter fit matches. High SP, High skill players will still have advantages, but not overwhelming ones. Players will also be informed as to what they will be facing in each match.
6. Reimbursement based matches. EVE organizations are primarily concerned with profit. So have the corporations issue contract rewards based around a reimbursement policies. ie. Contracts that will only reimburse equipment costs if the equipment falls below a certain level. Want to bring that proto level gear into the match? Fine, but if you lose it, you won't be reimbursed. Make the end of match rewards smaller, but have equipment reimbursement for gear that falls under the approved level.
7. Corporation matchmaking. Develop a corporation ranking system and place players into public matches with players of corporations of similar skill level. High skill players may join lower ranked Corps, but this spreads the skill around and helps to train lower ranked corps. Other high skill players may gravitate to the best corps for the prestige and challenge of playing against other good players.
8. Pre-match intelligence. Before the match is officially organized, allow players to view the performance profiles of the other team, and team members, including favorite suites, favorite weapons, KDR, ISK efficiency, etc. then allow the player to commit to the contract or back out. Or just make it so that selecting a player on the battle roster lets you see their stat profile. At a minimum, this will allow players to make intelligent decisions about what type of gear to use, strategies to employ, or to back out of the match entirely. Armies don't march blindly into battle, they attempt to gain as much info on the enemy as possible. Since CCP is implementing a more robust stat tracking program, this should be well within reach of the devs.
9. Insurance matches. Corporation hosting the match has a flat reimbursement payout + contract payout + performance payout. For example, a merc contract could specify an up to 100k reimbursement for gear (but not more than the cost of the gear lost) + 100k for winning the match (no payout for losing) + 4 mil ISK distributed among all the Mercs according to WP. If you took 310k of gear into the match, lost, but individually performed well you would receive 100k, + 0 + 300k bonus, for a total of 400k. You can bring proto gear, but only 100k of loses will be covered. This will incentivise players (but not all players) to gravitate to matches with reimbursement payouts more in line with their choice of gear.
10. High Value Target (HVT) matches. In this type of match the Headquarters (NPC) element of each team will begin to focus resources on the top Mercs of the opposing side. The top 3 players of the opposing team start to be permanently displayed on the map and highlighted on the player HUD (maybe even around corners). Players will receive increased points for killing the top 3 players of the opposing team. On the flip side, those top 3 players will gain increased war points for successfully completing objectives.
11. Implement a combination of these ideas, a combination of all, or implement several of these ideas seperately. The point being to have a lot of choices for players. Let them choose what type of match they are getting into. |