9 replies to this topic

[Amulame]

This has been a problem from the start and I hope our new owners can fix or even add a balancing system, because it feels like there is none at all.

 

It is about every single other game that I get joined with a team that obviously is inexperienced against a team that mostly consists of experienced players. Whether it is because of a new mech they are using or just new to the game this is destroying any love I have for this game completely. I don't know if it bothers only me but I'm sure everyone knows what I'm talking about.

 

This is a very easily solvable problem, add a queuing filter that depends on a players level. And then just putting those people together who actually know what they are doing, also I find it very often where my team is uneven. How about trying to make that better as well?

 

Basically all I am asking for is a system that makes the balance of games better, because at the moment I don't feel like playing with a bunch newbies against a quite strong group of players.

[ticklemyiguana]

I feel it's likely that many a user has glanced over this post and moved on, as it's not particularly fun to explain these away for the 40th time. I can't really fault you, as you may very well be the first person to complain about balance on the new forums.

 

However, please understand this is a very old, very stale topic that boils down to a single phrase.

 

The playerbase is too small.

 

The balance actually works great, when it is given the appropriate setting, ie: 12 players of roughly equal skill queuing up in the server before the game starts. However that's an ideal that's rarely reached without prior organization, and the game, rightly or wrongly, would rather fill servers in an appropriate timeframe than hang around for ten minutes before each game.

 

Second, it's worth mentioning that level and skill are very different beasts. The level caps at 30, but people keep improving, and improving at different rates. The best indication of "skill" for a player that we have available is called MMR, or matchmaking rating. You can find your own MMR by adding "scrimbot" as a friend. It will auto-accept the invite. You can then send the bot a message saying "MMR" and it will return a breakdown of your own in a short period of time.

 

You can also ask it for something called the SRD, or Server Rating Distribution. This will give you an approximate range, as well as an average MMR for the server.

Just a couple tools to help you find your own appropriate balance.

 

There is also the issue that the balancer is forced to make uncouth decisions when players join or leave. If both teams have equal players, it will give the first player who joins to the losing team, regardless of skill. This opens up the possibility of another, more experienced player joining immediately after, and thus being assigned to the winning team.

 

In the event that one team is short a player, the balancer will obviously always sort a joining player to that team.

 

These factors can produce some very unbalanced games. Your best bet is to stick with a server and not leave, and encourage others to do the same. If you'd like additional information or opportunities to organize your own balanced games, please check out the link in my signature.

Edited by ticklemyiguana, 23 March 2015 - 10:01 AM.

[Silverfire]

Also consider how teams are playing as a whole. There may seem that it is unbalanced if the score is 40-6, but maybe it is in fact balanced. How you may ask?

Teamwork. That is often the difference in matches, how teams work with each other. A team that stays together often times wins. Statistically, the game might be balanced, but if a team didn't work with each other, then they are doomed regardless of how the matchmaker worked, thus causing "unbalanced" games when in reality it is the players' fault.

[Elite_is_salty]

pffffffffff

[Silk_Sk]

Jeez, it's like Hawken never went away. Thanks for making the forums feel familiar.

[StubbornPuppet]

Ticklemyiguana has pretty much nailed it.

 

The balancer in Hawken works just fine.  If there were an abundance of players AND EVEN MORE IMPORTANTLY if players would stick around after a match instead of immediately leaving and/or people would wait for a full (or mostly full) lobby before starting the match, most every game would perfectly well balanced.

 

The alternatives to the way Hawken's balancer works are far, far less appealing.  Do you want it so that, once a match has started, the game forces players to sit in a queue, waiting for enough other players to also join in so it can figure out the best team to put them all on to make sure?  Nope, nobody would ever want to join a game in progress.  Do you want it so that everyone is forced to wait for a lobby to be completely full before the match starts?  Nope, nobody would bother to play Hawken because they would instantly get bored.

 

What we have is fine, we just need more players and, most importantly, more patience with reality.  Sometimes a team is just better and is going to win big - that's life.

[Amulame]

@ticklemyiguana Thanks for making this more clear to me.

 

@Silverfire An experienced player should know how to work in a team, so having an experienced player that can't play in a team makes him inexperienced obviously. Except I guess if your whole team consist of infiltrators, sharpshooters and predators.

 

@Eliteshooter Your lack of vocabulary and not real reply makes me wonder what age our Hawken community really is. I could only recommend to you to go play a console, seeing as it may fit your age better.

 

@StubbornPuppet Thank you for your opinion, I do guess this is as good as it will get. 

Edited by Amulame, 23 March 2015 - 02:30 PM.

[CaliberMengsk]

@Silverfire An experienced player should know how to work in a team, so having an experienced player that can't play in a team makes him inexperienced obviously. Except I guess if your whole team consist of infiltrators, sharpshooters and predators.

 

@Eliteshooter Your lack of vocabulary and not real reply makes me wonder what age our Hawken community really is. I could only recommend to you to go play a console, seeing as it may fit your age better.

 

@amulame

Experienced player doesn't mean that they play on a team regularly. There's also the idea of premade teams vs public teams. I can say that if I have just one other person that I know well from the past on my team, and we are in the same team speak server, vs a random pub team, we will most likely win. But being put on a team with random pubs, makes it hard to fit together.

 

As toward your comment toward Elite... Don't be a fuzzy bunny dude. We don't need that crap in our community. If you thought it was a lame statement that's fine, but just ignore it and move on. He didn't say anything hurtful, but as Iguana said, this has come up tons of times before. Should he have posted something useless to the discussion like that, no, but you most definitely should not have posted such a hateful reply to something so menial. Shame on you.

[JeffMagnum]

None of the solutions to this are perfect, but I think there are a few options.

 

Until the population increases, spawn gating on death would be a pretty decent stopgap solution to this. It's been suggested in the past and I was unsure about it then, but the more I've played with hardly anyone else on, the more I've seen that a good portion of unbalanced games come down to one team being up a player in the first couple minutes. When the score gets to be unequal due to that, everyone joining on the losing side tends to immediately quit, keeping the numerical imbalance throughout the entire match. 

 

Ideally, I'd prefer things that incentivize staying in the same server for longer periods of time. I've wanted a stacking HC bonus based on consecutive full games played for over a year now, and giving a little HC to everyone in a match that ends 6v6 might encourage people to group up into a smaller number of servers instead of spreading out. The first bonus would have to be enough to make staying for multiple games more lucrative than hopping into almost-full ones and then quitting after they end, but I think they're both workable ideas.

 

Like everyone else has said though, the balance issues are ultimately due to a small playerbase. If/when that gets changed, there shouldn't be nearly as many problems as there are now. 

[talon70]

Seems to me a lot of games start 4-5 or 5-6. People love to say 'ready up, ready up' yet its not even numbered players. Waiting 2 minutes is painful for some it seems. The games start odd numbered many times so its messed up from the start.

 

If there is an exact balance, why can some people click ready / unready until they get the team they are looking for? The teams do change. Why?

 

Not only do sometimes I feel it randomizes, but i sometimes feel  It seems to make the teams a real bad joke. I cant be the only one that has seen this. I know players teaming up in 3s can complicate the system but sometimes it really is an obvious slaughter match up right from the start.