115 replies to this topic

[Amisto]

SpeeDemon, on September 30 2013 - 08:52 PM, said:

I think there are other or better solutions for "team balance" that are being ignored.  I've been in plenty of team death matches where both teams are "balanced" 6 vs 6, each team having pretty equally skilled players and the match still results in a one sided domination.  The issue is that once a team gains forward momentum they are very hard to stop.  In a game where team work and staying together is most important it is very hard to regroup with your team once you have all died.  The team with momentum strolls around the map in a pack picking off the other team one by one as they spawn.  I have been on the receiving end of a blow out many times knowing that the friends in my party and I have the skill to win or at least make it a close match.  But as soon as one of us dies we re spawn clear across the other side of the map and somehow have to sneak past the enemy to regroup with our team.  I know it's not the perfect solution but if there was a system set up to re spawn near a team mate it may balance out game play.  There will always be unbalanced teams and some teams will get wrecked at times, but at least give them a fighting chance by letting them spawn near a team mate so they aren't easy prey.

Any thoughts_  Or am I the only one that sees this as an issue.

Edited by Amisto, October 02 2013 - 08:51 AM.

[BucketOfSkin]

As I've said in a few other posts, having courteous players able to switch to balance uneven matches (whether numbers or skill based) is a wonderful feature. Currently, the most courteous thing you can do right now is hang back and due to your inactive state the other team has more of a chance to come back. It's nice to see they are trying something, although Zamboni can't even answer an email about t-shirts so I won't hold my breath.

[Takoera]

well its something

Hurry up October, take your time devs and make it perfect.

[Hell_Tigris]

TOMORROW ISN'T COMING FAST ENOUGH!

[ArccBR]

Thank you all for your hard work.

[The_Silencer]

Looking forward to this new patch. Much appreciated!

[Spliff_Craven]

One of the biggest problems is the team with a man down.
Even if all were highly skilled players say 5 + 1 noobie and 5 short one.
The team a man up has a objective advantage and gun advantage. You can't offset this at all.

Maybe the only way to stop match switching is to "lock down" people to a match until it ends. you disconnect or restart your computer you get dumped into the match you left from or you can't join any others until the match you were in is finished.

This will cause massive problems.

I do have an alternative solution...
Go back to the Open Beta we enjoyed in the summer! it was better balanced and had better player retention than Ascension does!

[T_Bot]

Easy and only solution for the matchmaking:

1. Teamswitch button
2. The team that lost the last round or has less points / tickets / whatever gets the new pilot first.

[DFTR]

One more reason for the Team Switch button is to divide up the top players.  Most of us have seen a couple of matches where they put the top 2 players from both teams together in the next round.  

Typically one of the two would be willing to switch to make things more fair.

[HeartBreakThree]

sorry the game just isn't working for me, it was fun before ascension.

The balance issue was not just due to autobalancing/matchmaking. it is the overall gameplay design flaw. Pilot level and mech level have too much advantage over skill.

In the past i used the switch team button quite often when i feel the game just isn't balance because i know even with a new low level mech i still stand a chance fighting and as long as i can kill someone and gain xp i am okay. Now i wouldn't use the switch button even if you make it pop out just because there is so much advantage based on the pilot/mech level that i just can't kill anything. And it is a 100% waste of my time just getting shot for 10 mins with 0 kill.

appreicated your effort to make the change and it was a fun game before ascension.

[JeffMagnum]

Culex, on September 30 2013 - 06:44 PM, said:

I think Jeff Magnum might remember this game which occurred on Prosk where he ended up 1v5 against us, lol.

Then other people had to join in on my side and ruin the fun.

[Cyclohexane]

I’m glad some things are being worked on but team switching mid-game just seems like a band-aid.  Why not balance teams when the game starts_  You already have the statistics, just remove the new feature that is messing it up (pilot level).  Here is my recommendation:

• Give all players the 35 tuning points right off the bat at level 1.  Pilot level should be used for free cosmetics, bragging rights, prerequisites for certain mechs, or something else cool and creative like unlocking avatars, new animations, etc.

• Remove pilot level in the auto-balance feature.  If everyone got tuning points, then being a level 30 would provide no advantage.  A level 30 could join a level 1 game – no problem.

• Use the ‘kill to death’ ratio averaged over all of their mechs for last week of game play (multiplied by total hours of gameplay) as a means to balance teams.  Players whose careers have high kill to death ratios should be placed on teams with low ratios.  Each team would get as close to an average number as possible with equal number of players (not putting 1 versus 4 because he is excellent).  There may be a better way to determine skill than kill to death ratio (certainly assists should count for something and total time played is important), but incorporating pilot level in the auto-balance doesn’t work.

• Give a penalty to players leaving a game.  It could be as simple as not allowing them to join another game for 1 minute on first offence.
  
• If one player joins creating advantage on team, make him wait in staging area until another player joins.

Being level 30 does not mean you will dominate the field in no shape of the imagination.  This is not an RPG game.  I like RPG games, but that is not what attracted me to Hawken.  I know people who would want to play, but would never grind away to get to level 30.  Pilot level in the auto-balance is what jacked up the teams.

p.s. mech rank is more important than pilot level; especially since directly tied to tuning.  If this is used in algorithm, then we have serious problems since can swap mechs mid game.  Perhaps another metric can be used to average total mechs available and their mech ranks with skill level.

[Spliff_Craven]

I think they should look at a successful business model and what they provide for longevity...

Namely content, challenge, camaraderie and most of all FUN.
WoW is still attracting new players. It's the fresh content that draws old ones back.
I don't play it myself but it does demonstrate my point.

You might say, WoW is a MMORPG Hawken is an FPS that's not the same...

Ok then lets look at a successful FPS. I'll pick the Battlefield series.

I lump it into one game. They sell it as different "games" but to a player it is still a just a Battlefield game. The only difference between the different versions is CONTENT. Play hasn't really changed over the years has it_ The only times it has was to accommodate new graphics cards {better resolutions and textures, etc.} and new processors. In reality there hasn't been a huge jump in game play. You can pretty much jump into any Battlefield game{2142/Black Ops, etc} and you are ready to go. There are no huge changes to game play.
As a player you know what to do and do it.

[EliteShooter]

I believe that when there was a switch button, not too many people complained about it ! but when removed, many players where almost begging the devs to bring it back

Even if I respect all what the developers do for the game (from the premise that they want the best for it) I have a deep feeling that they do what they think is best and not what the community recommends.

Edited by EliteShooter, October 02 2013 - 11:55 PM.

[DrDoomNGloom]

Oh I ask the devs to reconsider in game auto balance, I left TFII because of this issue.

Balance pre match, but in game swaping will be an immediate FAILURE, and END to said game play!!

Actually let me be quite clear about this, the FIRST time that I get taken from a winning team and placed on a losing team, this game gets marked up as a POS and I will never pull anther minute of bandwith!!

There, is that clear enough!!

Edited by DrDoomNGloom, October 03 2013 - 07:59 AM.

[BucketOfSkin]

Spliff_Craven, on October 02 2013 - 11:45 PM, said:

I think they should look at a successful business model and what they provide for longevity...

Namely content, challenge, camaraderie and most of all FUN.
WoW is still attracting new players. It's the fresh content that draws old ones back.
I don't play it myself but it does demonstrate my point.

You might say, WoW is a MMORPG Hawken is an FPS that's not the same...

Ok then lets look at a successful FPS. I'll pick the Battlefield series.

I lump it into one game. They sell it as different "games" but to a player it is still a just a Battlefield game. The only difference between the different versions is CONTENT. Play hasn't really changed over the years has it_ The only times it has was to accommodate new graphics cards {better resolutions and textures, etc.} and new processors. In reality there hasn't been a huge jump in game play. You can pretty much jump into any Battlefield game{2142/Black Ops, etc} and you are ready to go. There are no huge changes to game play.
As a player you know what to do and do it.

Hawken follows LoL, and that is a tough act to follow. As for a business model I think a lot of people don't really understand what Hawken's end game is. Is the end of the line a successful PC game that's free to play_ Something tells me that there is more focus being generated around the ever growing mobile market. I don't think a switch team button fits that model.

[WAVER]

EliteShooter, on October 02 2013 - 11:54 PM, said:

Even if I respect all what the developers do for the game (from the premise that they want the best for it) I have a deep feeling that they do what they think is best and not what the community recommends.

Nothing to add...

[OmegaNull]

Has the update been done yet_

[DrDoomNGloom]

No way, if it was it was a flop ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, I just left a match with a 20+ point win over the other teams score.
I also dropped out of a match in the last 15 minutes that had launced and was 2 vs 6 ..................................

[USMC_Karl]

One thing I'd like to point out; I think it's pretty much impossible to always have a totally balanced game.  I was playing a bit last night and some of my teammates were quite angry because of the "imbalance" in the match.  Now, when I think of balance in the game there are a lot of things that pop up, but having the computer decide how to split up the teams based on skill level/mech level/K:D ration/etc is a little unrealistic.  I mean, there are only so many people on the game at any given time and the matchmaker needs to put together players and let them play.  If you seperate queues into (party/non-party/high level/low level/elite mech/normal mech/etc) then you run into the situation where a lot of players just won't be able to find matches.  The matchmaker is trying to put us together to the best of its ability.  

I'm not saying it works perfectly now, but if you are in a game that is 6v5 or 6v6 you can't really complain too much about the autobalance not working.  I've run into a couple games where the match was literally 3v7 and that is a problem, but when the number of players are balanced out then the game shouldn't really juggle things around too much.  I mean, if I'm playing a match where the number of players is totally unbalanced I wouldn't mind switching to the losing team and, in fact, wish there was some way for me to do so.  If the teams are "even" and the autobalancer steps in, then the team that becomes unbalanced (by switching over its players even when the teams have equal numbers of players) will justifiably be a little frustrated.

The main problem I see right now is that more than half of the players in a match will immediately leave when the match ends.  This makes it so the autobalancer can't really try to balance the skill levels between maps and, instead, has to try to work with the 4 or 5 players left over.  Then, when the match starts up and new players join, it has to balance the match from that point.  Meaning, if there is a 3v4 situation and a new player joins, he or she will most likely end up on the side with 3 players regardless of skill level.  

There should be some way to try to encourage the players to stay in their match between rounds.  I think allowing people to garage during the debriefing could go a long way to accomplishing this, but it should also be a little more apparent that waiting after the game will give you a new match.  I think most players don't realize that, because I have a hard time believing that people are so impatient as to not be able to wait for the 30 seconds or so for a new match to round to start up.

Edited by USMC_Karl, October 03 2013 - 02:05 PM.