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My own thoughts on why matches are more frustrating than they could be


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#1 Mykinius

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Posted April 19 2014 - 12:31 AM

TL;DR: Most of us here know the game feels unbalanced (in terms of teams rather than mechs/equipment). Here, I discuss exactly why it feels like that and provide some solutions for mitigating these problems.

I've been playing a lot of Team Fortress 2 again recently, and it's similar to Hawken in a lot of respects. It's heavily team-based, discouraging "lone wolf" play, and its class system means that match outcomes often depend on team composition. Due to both of these factors, teamwork is key, and assuming no blatant stacking, the team with better coordination and teamwork tends to win. In fact, assuming similar amounts of teamwork on both sides, even moderate stacking in terms of skill level doesn't ruin matches. That said, let's talk about Hawken...

In my opinion, the matchmaker does pretty well when it decides teams at the beginning of the game. Given a group of 12 people, I find that it's good at evenly distributing skill on both sides. The problem is that this never happens.
  • The vast majority of the time, using the matchmaker to start playing dumps you into an already in-progress match. Sometimes, this is ok: if you're lucky, you join a match that just started or become the 12th player in a somewhat far along but close match. But usually, it's frustrating. Suddenly being shown a 1500:3000 base health ratio indicates not only that you've been put on a team unable to hold its own, but also that you're doomed either to lose from a bad team or to carry this team to victory. Neither option is fun, because one provides a sense of futility and the other a sense of picking up slack from relatively useless allies.
  • Entering one-sided matches like this isn't great, but ideally, you can stick around until the end and wait for matchmaker to scramble the teams so next match more evenly distributes competence. But ending a match takes a long time. Exactly why the ends of matches linger so long has been discussed at length already, but the fact is that this downtime is apparently long enough that many players find it more efficient to leave immediately and reenter the matchmaker queue than to just wait for a new match to start in the same lobby. And once a few people leave, the more likely MORE people are to leave because nobody wants to start next match with 6 people or fewer, especially since such underpopulated matches often stay underpopulated without ever getting new players to fill out the 12 slots. In Team Fortress 2, humiliation provides a fun epilogue while the server waits to start a new round, but in Hawken, players completely lose control for an extended duration during which they could be in another match accruing the resources necessary for upgrading equipment (since HC isn't earned in downtime).
  • The relatively small size limits of each team exacerbate team size imbalances. In Team Fortress 2, even unfull servers often have about 8 players on each team. This means that an additional player provides his team with a 1/8 manpower advantage against the other team, and while not insignificant, it doesn't suddenly make the other team feel unfairly outnumbered. But in Hawken, the small team sizes mean that matches with 4v4 are common. When a 5th person joins, the bigger team suddenly has a whopping 25% more players than the other one, turning the tide of battle in a fashion that makes the smaller team feel annoyingly powerless against the increased pressure and reinforcements. And, once again, due to the matchmaker's tendency to leave matches with unbalanced player counts, these matches' teams often remain significantly skewed until the very end. Even if everyone waits for the next round to start (which is unlikely, as discussed above), the new match's waiting room still often lacks incoming players, leading to permanently skewed teams (and then the cascade of leaving players once they realize nobody is going to arrive to even out the teams).
So what can be done about these awful issues?
  • Shorten downtime and provide HC incentive for players to stay between rounds. The more people who stay until the next match, the better.
  • Have matchmaker focus on managing fewer matches. Lots of low-population matches leads to no fun for everyone, so denser player distribution would fill/balance both in-progress and about-to-start games faster.
  • Don't start objective-oriented matches without a larger minimum player count. Low-population deathmatches can work out as 3-way duels or pair-vs.-pair TDMs, but empty MA and Siege matches always suck because they feel like ghost towns (since players aren't supposed to be actively seeking/following enemies).
  • Increase team size. I know, this one's a doozy, but even making the teams 8v8 could go a long way for making technically unbalanced team counts feel less overwhelming (as described above).
  • Add functionality for vote-scramble and vote-kick. That way, if a match is clearly unbalanced, players (if the majority agrees) can choose to immediately rebalance the teams to provide a better experience for everyone (stomps are boring as winners and obnoxious as losers). Vote-kick is necessary due to those who are idle or verbally abusive and therefore hindering their team's effectiveness or everyone's enjoyment. Vote-scramble could/should provide small HC rewards to all players almost as if the match had run out of time just then so they don't feel like rebalancing the teams will cost them significant potential winnings.
  • Provide an option for "join matches in progress." This option could allow more patient players to wait for new matches, and you could provide an HC bonus to still convince players to join and balance out currently running games.
  • The server browser should be a little more detailed. In addition to player count, it should also show the vital match statistics of current team scores (3000:3000, for example), time remaining/elapsed, and friends currently in the server. This would also allow a "see friend's game info" option in the friends list so I could see player count and game mode before blindly jumping into a friend's match. Blindly/accidentally joining a friend's private duel? No thanks. Selecting a friend's 5v5 recently-started siege? Yes please!
I'm having trouble "tolerating" Hawken at the moment due to the feeling that the vast majority of matches for me feel needlessly empty or imbalanced in some way... a feeling I never get in TF2.

Oh, and not being able to manually join a friend's match even if invited due to MMR is completely bogus.

Edited by Mykinius, April 19 2014 - 12:51 PM.


#2 XPloyt

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Posted April 19 2014 - 12:59 AM

I agree with most of your points, except...

Promoting the statistic of games would deter people from joining them moreso, as it would allow a player to craftily select the games they can win. If it's there, it will be abused.

8v8's? On large maps, much like 3v3's are acceptable(tolerable) on small maps.

The maps don't compensate for small teams - If maps were created in a manner that of which could be sectioned off to something smaller to create player retention until a player quota was met, that would be awesome to see, in my opinion. Twisted Metal had sub-sections of maps, and were always better suited for 3v3's and less, where the max TDM player count was 8v8.

Either change how maps are designed to actively change with player count or create faster matchmaking for lack of player retention.

Edited by XPloyt, April 19 2014 - 01:01 AM.


#3 Lightangel112

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Posted April 19 2014 - 01:36 AM

You should have displayed a warning.

Warning: huge wall of text!! :o

View PostMeraple, on June 01 2014 - 11:54 AM, said:

If you want to be a Professional Yolodriver just go with DETs and the rest EMPs.

#4 Mawnkey

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Posted April 19 2014 - 01:57 AM

Part of the reason TF2 works the way it does is that you can run your own TF2 server since there's no real centralized stat tracking and no space bucks being earned to buy new widgets that enhance your gameplay. In Hawken those things are central to how the game makes money; they're a core part of the game that's fundamentally different from to TF2.

I agree the end of match stuff is an abomination that needs to die in a very very very hot fire. Seriously, I can't spray enough napalm on that "feature" to make it go away fast enough. Besides, the cool kids learn how to toss holopucks from their cloaked Predator right before murdering their victim.

More players I'd go for just on principle (I love me some big fights), but some of the current maps might start to feel a bit tight with 4 more people on them.

Matches in progress is a pain, but I think removing W/L tracking from PUGs (like keep track of all other personal stats and MAYBE W/L for straight up DM but not for anything team-based) plus getting rid of the post match time vampire would go a loooooooong way toward solving server population issues.

#5 Mykinius

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Posted April 19 2014 - 10:52 AM

View PostLightangel112, on April 19 2014 - 01:36 AM, said:

You should have displayed a warning.

Warning: huge wall of text!! :o
Hey, it's a complex, multi-faceted problem ;)

More ideas: matches with imbalanced team counts could provide the smaller team with a proportional passive benefit to help offset their lack of manpower. This could range from a boost in combat stats (could be damage, hp, and/or others) to a significantly reduced respawn delay for them or a significantly increased respawn delay for the bigger team.

#6 The_Silencer

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Posted April 19 2014 - 11:09 AM

View PostMykinius, on April 19 2014 - 10:52 AM, said:

...to a significantly reduced respawn delay for them or a significantly increased respawn delay for the bigger team.

Hmm... better not.

And yes, it's a complex, multi-faceted subject.

Priorities, priorities and Descartes based re-approaches... IMHO..

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#7 Zaxik

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Posted April 19 2014 - 11:44 AM

TLDR. But reading the first point was enough for me to find out what this thread is about.

And I agree.

3v4 games aren't fun for anyone and people leaving the server as soon as the match ends makes it impossible to make next game more balanced.

Whenever I join a server and therefore unbalance the match, I just say in chat that I'm not gonna fight until it's balanced.

If I even get to play this game, really...

Still nothing done about this...

Still waiting...

And barely playing...

Even working is more fun...

...
Got few Hawken vids here on my YT.

#8 Mykinius

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Posted April 19 2014 - 12:48 PM

View PostZaxik, on April 19 2014 - 11:44 AM, said:

TLDR. But reading the first point was enough for me to find out what this thread is about.
Yeah, I imagine many people here already know what I discussed in detail just like I do. I decided to actually write about it so there's a concrete list of reasons people/devs can refer to if they want to know exactly how/why the game often feels unbalanced beyond usual vague talk of "matchmaker sucks" and "team stacking." It's easier to brainstorm solutions for a problem the more you know about its specific causes and repercussions.

#9 Hell_Diguner

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Posted April 19 2014 - 04:50 PM

Part of the reason so many people leave between games is the games themselves are rather long. It's hard to convince yourself to squeeze in just one more game when you know there's a very real chance the game will last over thirty minutes (MA, Siege, Coop).

I'm in the "remove per game-mode daily win bonus" crowd, as it encourages hopping servers to find an easy win AND leaving servers the moment you get a win. Those bonuses gives a huge amount of HC and it's unlikely the average farmer will run out of game modes to try and get said bonus before it's time to stop playing.

The balancer could take advantage of the long intermission times to merge players in two low population servers currently in intermission and in the same region. Merging intermission people into just started or almost finished (spectating) games would also help.

The balancer should kick players who are AFK (fail to ready-up) before balancing the teams and starting a match.

I wouldn't say no to requiring six people to start a game of MA and Siege.

#10 rekina

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Posted April 19 2014 - 11:05 PM

I'd agree to your major points except one - Inviting friends or being invited by friends who have large mmr gap to you shouldn't be allowed. It sounds like you want a system that Diamond 1 player being able to team up with Bronze 5 player and queue in league because they are friends. Ofc they can do it - but they will only meet full of Diamond 1 or even above players. Still, in this case, they are doing something bad to their team members. I would agree to this feature only if there were some game mode that won't affect on your KDR, W/L and MMR. It's not about your friend and your stats, it's about preventing your team mates from unnecessary raging.

#11 SoldierHobbes11

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Posted April 22 2014 - 10:01 PM

As much fun as it is to bulldoze an entire enemy team when my friend calls me in as back up, I still think the invite shouldn't ignore MMR because if I can bulldoze an entire team in a 1-star server for me (my MMR is right around 2000) then going into a server that's ranked even lower than that isn't gonna make the game any more fun for the other guys.

And yeah, I really think that the matchmaker should focus on filling games rather than only thinking about MMR balancing. MMR doesn't mean anything when you end up outnumbered for the majority of the match. If anything, I kinda wish that the match maker would kick a person if teams are uneven from the get go.
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