I dont know how anyone could intelligently argue against a matchmaking system that's fare, and un-exploitable.

ie, you stat pad, then get stuck in game wayyy above your skill level... get stomped and then your score falls within 1-3 games until you are somewhere you belong.

It wont work due to low player base.
It will be like BFMC.
All the high end players had no one to play.

Are you referring to Battlefield Modern Combat? If so, that game had no matchmaker.

As far as "high-end players" having no one to play, that was only true for clanmatches for the wellknown clans. At least that was the case on the xbox360.

Most of my clan quit that game when the best we could do was get one clan match per week (if we were lucky), and that was always some thrown together clan of all the top players in the game... seemingly with the ultimate purpose of trying to give the top clan on the leaderboard a loss (they always disbanded after their first losses), or it was a rival clan that would ignore our challenges 99% of the time, then suddenly challenges and bring at full team of ringers made up of... you guessed, the top players in the game, lol.

Wouldn't have been so bad if it was an hourly or even daily occurence, but weekly... and only against awkward iterations of the same top 10 or so beasts in the game? We left BFMC for chromehounds... that says it all, lol.

~The X box 360 (creator of 360_Mafia)

If pubstompers and stat padders don't complain for it to be rescinded, it'll be a failure.

Can you please stop posting. Your like one of those eve players who is awful at the game, yet because he played eve; he is now somehow knowledgeable.

I don't which is worse your fanboinisum or your attempt at understanding the game.

Ya It did have matchmaking.
There was a low mid and high end.
We used to have to de rank because there wasnt anyone to play.
All the games available were in the mid rank.

Battlefied: Modern Combat? On the Xbox 360? That's BS, bro. lol

The Clanmatches were all "challenge based"
You queue'd up for clanwars, and any other clans that were queue'd up could then issue a challenge to your clan and vise versa. As for pub matches, you just chose from the region server list thing (there may have been some type of matchmaking there at some point but I doubt it).

You could even go to the leaderboard, look up a players personal info.... and if they were currently in a game you could join their match if there was any room. That's how we used to go troll the boosters and the bragbads.




If there was any kind of matchmaking beyond what I described in that game, then it happened long after I left I suppose

I believe Gear-only matchmaking would be sufficient. These latest iterations of Dust are heavily skewed in favor of gear making the difference over RL and IG skills. The skill bonuses we get from spending SP are simply not enough of an advantage to warrant matchmaking based solely off SP or WP.

Here are my thoughts: If we do manage to actually get a working economy in Dust, I would like to see a market for mid tier equipment. Right now they're simply stepping stones to protogear. If there was a matchmaking system based off gear, veteran players could still participate in matches, provided they "downgrade" their gear to an appropriate level.

This solves the problem of having too low of a high-sp population as well as encouraging players to "max out" fitting and support skills instead of rushing straight into prototype gear. As an added benefit, testing and balancing will actually be possible because there will be, hopefully, fewer variables that complicate the discussion.


Needless to say -- Corp, PC and FW matches should remain "anything goes" with zero matchmaking IMO.

I believe Gear-only matchmaking would be sufficient. These latest iterations of Dust are heavily skewed in favor of gear making the difference over RL and IG skills. The skill bonuses we get from spending SP are simply not enough of an advantage to warrant matchmaking based solely off SP or WP.

Here are my thoughts: If we do manage to actually get a working economy in Dust, I would like to see a market for mid tier equipment. Right now they're simply stepping stones to protogear. If there was a matchmaking system based off gear, veteran players could still participate in matches, provided they "downgrade" their gear to an appropriate level.

This solves the problem of having too low of a high-sp population as well as encouraging players to "max out" fitting and support skills instead of rushing straight into prototype gear. As an added benefit, testing and balancing will actually be possible because there will be, hopefully, fewer variables that complicate the discussion.


Needless to say -- Corp, PC and FW matches should remain "anything goes" with zero matchmaking IMO.

Problem will still persist lol. Core skills....



this system doesnt just go off of WP and SP though.

Accuracy
K/D
average Kill Streak
Time played
Score Per minute
everything...

Why not just a combination of all the above? Lifetime WP, lifetime SP, and (not sure how to track this) but average fitting meta level. I would say KDR, but since things are so exploitable, how many times you die vs how many times you killed someone is near meaningless.

ELO match maker, based on who you kill/die to. not win ratio, or anything else,.

everyone starts at 1000, die -1, kill +1.. done

if you kill someone with 500, and you have 2000, its only a + 0.3, if you die to them its a - 10 and so on.

this is all just simple number ratio's to help one understand it,. its a concept from chess rankings,. and it works well in shooters.

How many of those shooters had a gear disparity?

Gear would probably be flagged according to Meta, rendering invalid fittings should you attempt to equip gear with to high of Meta.

Gear would probably be flagged according to Meta, rendering invalid fittings should you attempt to equip gear with to high of Meta.

Doesn't that pretty much screw Amarr assaults?

I wonder how the match making will work. I know it says it takes gear into the equation, but im sure there is a way to circumvent this lol.
Was meant for another thread, but then it got really long so i decided to make it its own.


Delete all proto fits. Join game. Make a proto fit in 20 seconds while in game and get hate mail.

It wont work due to low player base.
It will be like BFMC.
All the high end players had no one to play.

i dont get the whole gear thing,..

Say in concept, at the vary top of the match maker, No seriously look up, up more,..

Ok so who's up here? wait for it,.. /GASP,.

"the best players in the best gear"

Let's assume that player is currently an AR spec'd Assault. What happens if that player decides to spec into AV? The guy could just keep grinding in his AR set until he has enough sp, but this discourages players from trying out different builds and roles.

Your idea also encourages people to play in prototype gear 24/7.

Also, and this is the most important part, how the hell do you even BEGIN to balance a game when people have such a large gear disparity?

everyone has a crutch,. the good players have more. =)

if someone fears there own rank,. then the same players fear there own k/d ratio right now..

This gear balancing wont solve anything. The battles will play out the same, in favor of those with more SP and skills, and someone with more SP is usually the better player because they have spent more time playing....

This is why we need what ive stated. Instead of matching people based on gear, how about trying to show a players skill level is, based on what they get done in a match. Id someone proto stomps all day and has high stats, then they should be more likely to be put with other proto stompers.

Because matches literally full of snipers, full of logis or full of heavies doesn't interest me.

I do not understand match making.
You only get better -playing better players.

You watch a better player do something that kills you, /facepalm "Why didn't I think of that" and move on.
I frankly suck at this game. I am not going to quit because of it, I'm going to try harder.

Sometimes you get stomped. BFD, move on to the next one.
We are playing as Mercenaries in a Scifi universe. Who said it should be easy?

That is what I am perceiving this discussion to be about. Making the game easier.

Really.
I don't understand the thought.

Hey that's great and all, but how about you actually address what I wrote.

Doesn't that pretty much screw Amarr assaults?

Dude, this already happens right now, its pretty random, but it happens. But if that happens with a legitament match maker, then obviously something is broke balancing wise.

but i did,. /shrug

your saying this player has built a crutch with skill/gear, so he is scared to try new things, and drop in rating..

HMG heavies generally have low accuracy. Snipers generally have high accuracy. So tell me how a matchmaking system with accuracy as a variable is going to make sure that matches don't end up having 32 snipers or 32 heavies? I'm not saying your idea is a bad one, I'm just saying lets start off with gear and and variables as we go along.

You just described 99% of the player base.

the problem,.?

Like I said, the best players dont need to crutch there rank, the ones that do, well,.. to bad for them,. Let the ELO sort us out.

And the Heavy user can make up for it by destroying vehicles, racking kills defending a point etc. This type of matchmaking is dynamic and is always changing.

SP tiers is a barrier and high end players would eventually outgrow everyone below them to the point that they consider others at the same tier a personal friend and not even bother fighting.

The problems is that Dust is not (well ,not supposed to be) a run of the mill shooter. Different gear, tactics, roles means that it's not as simple as run & shoot.

I think we are on topic still, so here I go..

Roles can be left to all the other various turf wars Dust should fix up and add more to. Squads in a match maker will just rise faster in rank, roles always work in the squad crutch, <---- love this term btw.

I play scout, 100% of the time. I feel my role,. no problems here.

I see dust as MMO bg style pvp,. not a shooter, so lets delete this run of the mill shooter thing..

No offense, but that could not have been more painful to read, but I think I know what you're saying. I just don't think ELO is adequate for Dust.

The problems is that Dust is not (well ,not supposed to be) a run of the mill shooter. Different gear, tactics, roles means that it's not as simple as run & shoot.

It doesn't matter, he's right, all you need is an ELO system. If someone is wearing proto and 10m SP but is a total garbage player then he will sit in amongst the lower end crowd because he's not a threat to anyone, even the militia geared players. If someone is wearing militia and has 1m SP but is some sort of FPS Superman then he'll climb the ladder until he meets people who can give him a good match (either through skill or gear, it doesn't matter). The proto equipped FPS master will sit at the top of the tree.

So Tl:dr you don't need to differentiate WHY a player is kicking ass or not, an ELO system will agnostically account for it.

ELO pretty much works the same as what im describing. But what im describing takes everything into account for a composite score that constantly change. It can change rapidly or very slowly.

ELO by its very nature includes everything about a player because it is only concerned with one thing, the result, your success rate.

The only addition to ELO you would need is a slight modifier based on gear meta level. Otherwise with pure ELO if you decided to take off your proto-gear to earn/save ISK then you'd be outside your overall "ranking" bracket and in over your head. It would take too many matches to readjust, same with when you put it back on.

So it just needs to be pure ELO*(Small_Gear_Meta_Adjustment)

Elo (it's a name by the way not an acronym) type system would work if effectiveness was solely determined by killing people.

What happens to our professional logi players, dropship pilots etc?

*IF* warpoint rewards were balanced between different playstyles then there is probably someway that they could be used to implement a similar ranking system.

Pure Elo based on kills however will not work.

ELO match maker, based on who you kill/die to. not win ratio, or anything else,.

I can't see any way that matchmaking will work in this game.

If i am stuck (with my 12 million SP) playing the same 16v16 lobby in IB, cause we're literally the only 32 people on in the 'high bracket', then there is really going to be no point in playing.

They needed to make a system that incentivizes through rewards, not just excluding high SP players altogether.

They should have put their efforts towards making FW worthwhile instead of implementing a matchmaking system for IB that probably will do very little. As it is... there is not that many people online at any one time, and I usually end up playing IB against the same people over and over anyways.

@General Technique

lolwut? Just using gear alone wont work. Why? Because you gain SP over time... So eventually even a horrible player will get some proto gear, but even then he will still be a bad player.

You seem like you hate the thought of a challenge, and havent learned how to take a loss. How is matchmaking based on skill a scam? You sound borderline fanatic.

I wouldn't mind a gear-based gate, like, fittings with meta-levels above 1 are nixed from play in the low-tier game. That's a strict-gear based way. Even if you can wear proto gear, you can't actually use fittings with it in those matches.

An alternate scheme (also-gear-based) that looked at the gear unlocked (if you're capable of wearing proto shield extenders, proto ARs, etc.) would probably work too, and you could flex that around how much weaponry/modules/suits you've actually unlocked.

I think both of those probably work better than a pure SP-earned, since an SP-earned system punishes people for saving SP. Saving SP seems to be the CCP solution for "no-respecs", so it would seem hypocritical to have a system that's punitive to people that are waiting for the unreleased content they won't be getting respecs for. If you want to save 12 million SP and spend none of it, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to compete in the lower tiers I'd think.