71 replies to this topic

[MomOw]

 

This is not even the most egregious example I've seen by far. Forget the higher-mmr top scoring players. Look at the scores of the lowest scoring players on both sides.

 

2 things to be taken into account :

- look at the ping, 'k it won't explain everything but it could explain why players with same levels could get lower score.

- when you are in a winning team, the respwnd system lead the other team to be even less organized, so a lower skilled player in a winning team often get a better score than a better player in the losing team.

 

But, I do agree that 40-6 is ludicrous !

[PepeKenobi]

...

 

This completely ruins the fun for us vets. Even one newb can destroy the balance. I have to babysit these goofs and deal with their not understanding the game mechanics on a constant basis.

A bit late but I had to say this: Don't be so demanding, DerMax. :) Handling 1 or 2 noobs per team (in 12/12 - 14/14 servers) should not be something so terrible. Although I do agree on that allowing noobs to join in a match populated by ace pilots can end up being a mess many times.

 

Will be a better way to balance the equation in the middle of those main factors for matchmaking ---> Dynamic MMR averages per team in the servers  and  decreasing waiting times to join in and not enough pupulated servers because of some combination of the later.

 

On the other hand, what we suggest (highly suggest we think) would be to be a bit patient with new players. Suggesting them how to proceed rather than yelling at them or anything else which does not apport anything good...

 

It's a time of transition. The devs take accurate note on everything; we positively think.

[PepeKenobi]

addendum: If the MMRs are going to be high in the server for the new player then an informational window could pop-up warning him about that "The game is going to be challenging. Ace pilots present. Pay attention, pilot, and follow instructions if any. Good luck!".

 

Or something...

 

[Meraple]

Handling 1 or 2 noobs per team (in 12/12 - 14/14 servers) should not be something so terrible.

It's pretty much a farm-the-noob while both teams camp at times,

because that one player often doesn't know when to duck back into cover.

(Some of them even keep ramboing instead no matter what..)

 

This is related:

Edited by (KDR) Meraple, 25 May 2015 - 09:50 AM.

[Nightfirebolt]

Matchmaker works when the lobby is filled and no one leaves and rejoins. The matchmaker does not work when it starts without a full lobby and people are constantly rejoining. It's that simple, from a non technical perspective at least.

 

Except that it sometimes doesn't work even with a full lobby. See my post here.

[PepeKenobi]

It's pretty much a farm-the-noob while both teams camp at times,

because that one player often doesn't know when to duck back into cover.

(Some of them even keep ramboing instead no matter what..)

 

Generalizations aren't always good though. Anyway, I believe in that a bit of help given to noobies is a must, always. Most of the times by just typing some few tips upon a time plus using the tactical markers (help requested and enemy sighted) more often may end up improving the performace of the team pretty considerably. That's my personal view though... whilst I'll agree on that some guys ignore the tips while others do not.

 

*shrugs*

[IareDave]

Except that it sometimes doesn't work even with a full lobby. See my post here.

Parties tend to mess up the balance even in full lobbies from what I've seen so that might of been present in your game or someone was smurfing (unlikely given the MM fix). But, from my experience, a full lobby prior to the start of the match will result in fairly balanced games a majority of the times.

[Nightfirebolt]

Parties tend to mess up the balance even in full lobbies from what I've seen so that might of been present in your game or someone was smurfing (unlikely given the MM fix). But, from my experience, a full lobby prior to the start of the match will result in fairly balanced games a majority of the times.

 

I asked the players in question if they were in party, and they said no. They weren't lying, either, because in the next match they were split up. They were on their main accounts, not smurfs.

 

So yes, you're right, the matchmaker does sometimes make balanced matches, but it seems entirely up to chance rather than some competent algorhythm at work.

Edited by Nightfirebolt, 25 May 2015 - 01:32 PM.

[_incitatus]

New players lose because the winning team has a player who dominates (in the correct MMR bracket), resulting in winning teams having double the losing team's kill spread.

Smurfs?

[StubbornPuppet]

Figured I'd chime in.  The new matchmaking changes have actually improved the new player experience, if anything.  That being said, it's very slight.  So, don't worry that the matchmaker changes ruining Hawken (the numbers don't back up that assertion).

 

However, what the recent matchmaker changes have proved is that we need to introduce intelligent changes made mid-match; and these changes need to be based on *actual* performance during the match, and especially acting when users are something over 2 times off the standard deviation of a number of stats.  The simplest such system that's already in place is the kick for being idle, incidentally.

 

In regards to what new players experience, they lose 3 out of 4 matches.  That's always been the case.  That cannot continue.  It's a big part of why Hawken halted.  New players lose because the winning team has a player who dominates (in the correct MMR bracket), resulting in winning teams having double the losing team's kill spread.  The problem here is an inability for game servers to discover and act upon cases where there is gross mismatch between rating and actual performance.  The matchmaker system, being outside of this, is actually not too bad.  The game servers need to have expanded systems.

 

Now, I'd like to know what you guys think of how the private servers are not included in the matchmaker placements.  That, and how they ignore MMR.   Have you seen better matches that way, or do you think the Matchmaker is required to fill servers?

 

In direct answer to the question you're asking at the end:  I do not think matchmaker should send folks to private servers.  Private servers are just that, "private", and should stand and/or die on their own merit.  And the special conditions in many of these servers make it confusing and unfair for a player just looking for a game.  I think most seasoned players use the "View Servers" option to find matches... and since the private servers show up there and are quite obvious, keep them out of plain matchmaking.

 

Now, to address a question to you about the first part of your statement:

I just don't see how the matchmaker changes could have possibly made things better for new players... or anyone.  I still constantly see matches with incredible MMR gaps - just Friday I saw one that was 950 - 2450.  WHAT?  I didn't even know a player could be below 1200, but 950... and against players who were up to 2450???  I simply do not see how that is considered to be within acceptable tolerances.  Can you explain how things have actually improved?  For newbies?  Across the board for other players?

 

So, Capn, I'm not saying that this is ruining Hawken, I'm just saying that I personally felt things looked much more balanced before the change.  It wasn't perfect, by any means, but I felt it was more balanced.

 

Thank you for commenting for us.

Edited by StubbornPuppet, 26 May 2015 - 07:11 AM.

[StubbornPuppet]

Parties tend to mess up the balance even in full lobbies from what I've seen so that might of been present in your game or someone was smurfing (unlikely given the MM fix). But, from my experience, a full lobby prior to the start of the match will result in fairly balanced games a majority of the times.

 

I asked the players in question if they were in party, and they said no. They weren't lying, either, because in the next match they were split up. They were on their main accounts, not smurfs.

 

So yes, you're right, the matchmaker does sometimes make balanced matches, but it seems entirely up to chance rather than some competent algorhythm at work.

 

It's probable that one of these guys joined the first match in progress while that team was down a player.  Matchmaker always gives the incoming player to the smallest team - when available.  I actually don't have a problem with that, considering the alternatives.

 

Smurfs?

 

That's exactly what does it.  The plague of Hawken.

I hope that, after some other important stuff is taken care of, the new devs remove the glitch that allows players to skip the training and tutorials.  In fact, I think they should require all new accounts to go through even more training and make them go through a couple of matches of bot training for every game, before they can join a live match.

Sure, it won't stop all smurfing, but it will make it annoying enough to dissuade a good deal of it.

[DerMax]

There should be teirs of matchmaking.  People level 30 shouldn't be playing with people who aren't level 30.

Spoiler

Unless they are a smurf

How about the following two matchmaking tiers:

 

Tier 1: <2000 MMR

Tier 2: >=2000 MMR

 

Levels don't mean much because smurfs. This tiering scheme would make life much harder for smurfers, because getting to 2000 MMR is a matter of just several games for an elite player.

 

What do you think?

Edited by DerMax, 26 May 2015 - 07:15 AM.

[StubbornPuppet]

How about the following two matchmaking tiers:

 

Tier 1: <2000 MMR

Tier 2: >=2000 MMR

 

Levels don't mean much because smurfs. This tiering scheme would make life much harder for smurfers, because getting to 2000 MMR is a matter of just several games for an elite player.

 

What do you think?

I think it would leave people like me in a constant struggle to find a balanced match. I'm always hovering around 1950-2050 these days... where do I end up?  That would be a lot of a roller coaster for me.

[Call_Me_Ishmael]

How about the following two matchmaking tiers:

Tier 1: <2000 MMR
Tier 2: >=2000 MMR

Levels don't mean much because smurfs. This tiering scheme would make life much harder for smurfers, because getting to 2000 MMR is a matter of just several games for an elite player.

What do you think?

I gave this some thought this morning.

MMR gives up to 35 points for scoring highest in the match (leave partial matches out for now). That 35 is scaled by how far below the mean MMR in the server you are.

Without changes to MMR parameters, your suggestion would make a wide chasm between the two groups. Meta and playstyle would drift, making the chasm very difficult to approach and harder yet to cross (upward).

I think the dividing line would need to be much lower, around 1700 to avoid that.

I'd rather suggest we promote statistical outliers to higher MMR quickly (e.g. give a player 200 for topping a server below 1700) And modify the MMR penalty for playing over your head and doing poorly to something an order of magnitude smaller than current.

We need to be sure that the dividing line between PRO and newb is crossable and likely to be crossed.

[StubbornPuppet]

I don't think a dividing line is the right approach.  I think we need a more carefully thought out range - improvements to how it was working previously.

 

The first part would be to make it scale-able to the total number of players online at a given time - if there's a large player count, enforce tighter mmr restrictions and caps.  If there are fewer players online, loosen up.

 

Next, I'd propose bonuses for low MMR players who are willing to "step it up" and play in high tier matches.  Along with that, an option for high tier MMR players to take a series of nerfs or handicaps that would become an available option if they need to "play down" to find a match.

 

Also, do something better than the stupid "3 stars" match rating system.  It's confusing to new players and barely makes sense to experienced players because the rating is dependent on your own general MMR within the whole.

[DerMax]

 

Also, do something better than the stupid "3 stars" match rating system.  It's confusing to new players and barely makes sense to experienced players because the rating is dependent on your own general MMR within the whole.

Yes to this. Just show a server's average MMR, like it used to be in the pre-Ascension times.

[StubbornPuppet]

 

Also, do something better than the stupid "3 stars" match rating system.  It's confusing to new players and barely makes sense to experienced players because the rating is dependent on your own general MMR within the whole.

 

Yes to this. Just show a server's average MMR, like it used to be in the pre-Ascension times.

 

Well... sort of.  The "average" MMR is really not telling as much as the spread does.  Just because a match, like the one I mentioned earlier at 950 - 2450, has an avg. of 1800 MMR, doesn't mean it's a suitable match for either the newbie OR the middle of the road player.  Those people just become free points for the 2450 players in the match.

Edited by StubbornPuppet, 26 May 2015 - 11:04 AM.

[PepeKenobi]

just curious...

 

are parties of ace players being put against a random number of noobs to play with obscene impunity right now?

 

That could explain even more the current situation I do personally find in my games many times these last days.

 

::: Maybe this deserves its own thread in the forums...

[Nov8tr]

PepeKenobi, Yeah been seeing a lot of high level "parties" in the last few days. They getting scores 1200 - 1400  and everyone else getting 200-300. (if they are lucky. I've seen some with scores as low as 10 -20. I've seen the server take ALL the high scoring players and put them on the opposite team the next match and ALL the lowest scoring on the other side. I've seen this at least 6-8 times yesterday alone. Remember I play all the match types and play in all the countries except South America. (only because I can rarely find anyone on there.) Yes pings are running higher. Mine is running 20-40 higher on average in the USA and 80 - 100 higher in other countries. I will say I haven't seen any of the 800 -1000 pings in the last week. But the matches have been horrendous. Last night alone I lost 60 MMR to the massive imbalance as described above. Do fine in normal games. Even do well in games where we have one guy is is pretty much well above the group. But when the other side is FAR above everyone else. Not above most people, above everyone else it is not fun, not a joke and not fair by any standards of play. It is ludicrous. And as most people here know I have several alts. All my alts are 1500 -1550 range on average. My main is under 1400. I have been trying to weeks to get it above and have gotten it to 1415 or so a couple of times but it just won't go up. You can go down VERY fast but go up VERY slow. Everytime I get my alts up to almost 1600 some stomp party comes thru and destroys it. Not fun. TBO, getting tired of doing it. Real tired.

[Nov8tr]

OK just did 3 matches. First match same thing as yesterday........insane imbalance. Of course after the match the entire "party" left and NO ONE on that side was here after match. Last 2 matches worked fine. Won both. I got 1st place MVP, then 2nd place assist leader. I gained 1 MMR. YEAH 1 MMR against people of my skill level and 3 higher. So yeahhhhh......... one MMR up for 2 good games. :(

 

*EDIT* OK out curiosity I just checked the Highest rated players in the game. I have seen Devotion #13, Onstrava #121, old_age #271 and others on smurf accounts. Those are just the ones I remember and the ones I recognized by playstyle or smurf name. How is this possible? It happens to others I guarantee. You say well why aren't there tons of people reporting this. One, for all I know there is. Two, the vast majority of players never even come to the forums ever. And if they do, most don't post. There are cracks in the dam folks. I'm not sticking my fingers in the holes. Tired of getting em ripped off.

 

*2nd Edit* Sorry forgot to say my MMR is 1500 to 1550.

Edited by Nov8tr, 26 May 2015 - 06:07 PM.

[Xacius]

DerMax plays Hawken.  

 

Hawken uses "Low Player Count"

 

It's super effective!  

[System64]

Maybe they can add a utility to view who is on a server, and the MMR of each player?

Edited by System64, 27 May 2015 - 03:15 AM.

[DerMax]

DerMax plays Hawken.  

 

Hawken uses "Low Player Count"

 

It's super effective!  

Yes but not really. Prior to the matchmaking logic change what I described in the OP was not an issue � we had our lovely evening ~2200 TDMs with competent players battling it out. Now we have to play with ~1?3 newbs who consider it their duty to beeline to the enemy team and die incessantly.

[CraftyDus]

There should be teirs of matchmaking.

 

works for cs

 

 mass appeal or do we want a focussed competitive experience?

 

I've been chiefly occupied by supporting organized team competition since I arrived in Hawken.

 

Mass appeal first.

 

Any system that puts me (MMR of 1750) in a match with Armored Klown (MMR of 4000) is clearly a flawed system.

 

best comment in thread

 

How about the following two matchmaking tiers:

 

Tier 1: <2000 MMR

Tier 2: >=2000 MMR

 

What do you think?

 

I think this is the right tree to bark up for matchmaking.

 

Free up mid round adjustment for a balancer, you've got huge improvement

 

Maybe they can add a utility to view who is on a server, and the MMR of each player?

 

A server browser with the features Shadeness' utility provides would be world class http://hawken.herokuapp.com/

[TangledMantis]

Maybe we could have more matches going if they were made smaller and more manageable? Lately I see les servers with more people. 24-person server.. that USED to be three separate games. Now its 1 full game and a bunch of 0/?? servers idling. People say there are no games often.. its because everyone is in a giant cluster together. I will play the 14-16-18 man servers, but the 24 player servers are just too much.

[System64]

@Crafty: Thanks for that, exactly the kind of thing I was talking about.

[n3onfx]

consider it their duty to beeline to the enemy team and die incessantly.

 

Maybe they are just watching SOMEONE_whoshallnotbe_NAMED do it and take it as an example of how to play.

[Charcoal]

I feel like parties should have some sort of MMR multiplier or bonus attached to them.

 

It seems like 2 coordinated 1900s would be worth more than 2 randoms of similar MMR.

At least it seems that way in objective modes.

[StubbornPuppet]

I feel like parties should have some sort of MMR multiplier or bonus attached to them.

 

It seems like 2 coordinated 1900s would be worth more than 2 randoms of similar MMR.

At least it seems that way in objective modes.

 

The only thing wrong with parties is that the matchmaker always keeps them on the same team.  It should never work that way.

 

I'm sorry to those folks who want only to play on the same team with their buddies, but it makes balancing matches impossible and is an easy way for a group of high ranked players to intentionally go around stomping.

 

Parties = Good... but they have to be broken up onto different teams if that's what creates a balanced match.

[PepeKenobi]

So parties are relevant into all this ?

 

Ok, some questions "then"...

 

To what extent?

 

1 party of high MMR or ace pilots may end up playing against a non party based team (no matter what's the MMR od the later team then?

 

Thus the problem also would be that to balance teams before a match won't be coherent enough from a coding stand point when 1 party is present?

 

If there's a team autoswitch procedure then why not a party breaker proc if teams are going to be very unbalanced?

 

I've seen some few games in which my team mates were all playing Assaults and also were newbies in the game. Whilst the other team were all experienced players and were piloting different mechs to become a lethal team... could be that a factor to be considered as well...?

 

Just asking

[Nightfirebolt]

It's probable that one of these guys joined the first match in progress while that team was down a player.  Matchmaker always gives the incoming player to the smallest team - when available.  I actually don't have a problem with that, considering the alternatives.

 

Obviously you didn't read my first post.

 

This is not what happened. The team was unevenly balanced before the match had even started, at the exact time when the matchmaker is SUPPOSED to do its job.

Edited by Nightfirebolt, 27 May 2015 - 03:03 PM.

[DieselCat]

Yes but not really. Prior to the matchmaking logic change what I described in the OP was not an issue � we had our lovely evening ~2200 TDMs with competent players battling it out. Now we have to play with ~1?3 newbs who consider it their duty to beeline to the enemy team and die incessantly.

 

What is it with this newb bashing ?...it is what it is till the game starts getting more people. Really sorry so many incompetent players are ruining the game for you. 

 

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