23 replies to this topic

[Singleton06]

I was playing in a lobby tonight and it went from a 1850 MMR average to a 2500 MMR average really fast.  I figured out that it was because three different 2600+ rating players were in a party and queued up.  For some terrible reason, matchmaking put them in our lobby.  There weren't enough players in the game for it to be any more than a 3v3, so the matchmaking paired three approximately 1850 MMR players against three 2600+ MMR players.  

 

This isn't the first occasion, matchmaking does this all the time to me.  It is frustrating for me, and ruins the game when I have to play against players that are significantly more experienced, especially when there are multiple and your team doesn't have anywhere near the skill level.  This is a game breaking bug in my opinion, and should be one of the first things to be focused on.  From conversations with experienced and newer players that I've had, almost everyone feels this way.

[kaiserschmarrn_]

It's not a bug. The devs put it in on purpose. The reason us high ranking(2500+) players are often mixed in with lower MMR lobbies is that sometimes there aren't enough of us to get our own matches going. 

Edit: I find it hard to believe that "experienced" players told you that this feature should be removed...   -.-

Edited by meatmissile_, 13 August 2015 - 09:49 AM.

[Pleasure_Mortar]

IMO matchmaking is nothing we should be worried about right now.

The matchmaking wasn't designed to handle a playerbase like the current one. super small with little new players and a core of high skilled players.

 

What I worry about is that they are still trying to figure out IF the game is salvagable and to what degree. This coudd be either Meteor and Adhesive has generated and X amount of debt, how can we fix the game to a bare minimum to generate X revenue plus our cut of Y% and then dump it and move on, or is it possible to make it a good game and improve it to make it last.

 

I decided to take the last paragraph back and just go for a positive approach.

No use thinking about what could go wrong and spoiling the fun I could have now.

I wish Hawken all the best and hope the game will recover and turn out great. 

Edited by Pleasure_Mortar, 14 August 2015 - 10:37 AM.

[StubbornPuppet]

Based directly on the core of your complaint, Singleton06, what is really wrong is that the party system keeps all party members on the same team.  I don't think it ever should, unless it is completely possible to guarantee two well balanced teams at the same time.

 

Also, your sense of what the complete picture of the MMR of the players already in the match and those of the players joining in might be exaggerated.  The SRD only shows you the lowest mmr, the highest mmr and the average.  Unless there are only 3 players (of which you are one), you don't really know who's MMR is what unless you ask (or are multitasking in the herokuapp).  Same with the players coming into a match.  That party could have consisted of 1 2600 mmr player and two who were lower.  If you had only three players already in the match that were all 1850, unless you were sitting there for a very long time waiting for the next match (see the new matchmaking wait times for high mmr players comments around the forum), three 2600 players could not have joined you - the deviation is too high.

 

It is completely possible that I have parts of the above wrong, feel free to correct me.

[Hyginos]

This isn't the first occasion, matchmaking does this all the time to me.

 

I find this exceedingly unlikely, as there are rarely enough 2600 MMR players on at once for it to occur, and ever rarer that they would choose to party up, as most of them are aware of the issues it creates. My guess is you were simply unfortunate enough to be on just before a certain team that doesn't normally play Hawken was to have a match, and some players chose to warm up together.

 

With that said, match balance is not robust to hot-joins or leavers. If a match is poorly balanced, it's often because someone left or joined after the teams were made.

[Draigun]

These are problems stemming from a low player base. Reloaded had to make adjustments to the ongoing issue of not finding a match. The result is a guaranteed match for anyone after a specific period of time.

 

Indeed, you three faced members from Team Handsome, currently leading TPG's Season 3 of competitive Hawken.

 

I think Nept should allow a team to have up to six (6) G2-Assaults. This would make matches far more balanced.

[Flifang]

I can see where you're coming from but I have never played at that caliber before and I certainly didn't then. You did rather well some of those matches. To me you seemed to fit in. I wouldn't have guessed your mmr being there.

[Anichkov3]

Several of my modest suggestions for improvement matchmaking game. 

 

 

 

I will list some of the features:

1) Party will not collapse because of autobalance. Ie even the when a player (consisting in a party) goes to another team because of the autobalance (or volunteer) - vseravno he is a member of the party (and will have a increase in ratings MMP because of the party). Thus, if the party will play on the same server do not have to create it anew.

2) I hope everyone knows that when you play in a party is now overestimated rating MMR of players from the party.

3) When you rebalance the teams will be the following: Autobalance selects only one player on each team (not necessarily it has to be a beginner - search for the best "candidates" go among all players on the server), the exchange of which will allow to receive the best balance.

4) Server MMR 2200+. Players with rating MMR < 2200 may join the server by the general rules matchmaking.

5) Rebalance the teams are valid only in the first half of the match.

Edited by Anichkov3, 14 August 2015 - 08:30 AM.

[1uster]

tl,dr;

but you get a like for all the work.

 

ps. I will read it later when it's _not_ 35 C� in my room anymore.

Edited by 1uster, 14 August 2015 - 03:54 PM.

[Singleton06]

 

Also, your sense of what the complete picture of the MMR of the players already in the match and those of the players joining in might be exaggerated.  The SRD only shows you the lowest mmr, the highest mmr and the average.  Unless there are only 3 players (of which you are one), you don't really know who's MMR is what unless you ask (or are multitasking in the herokuapp).  Same with the players coming into a match.  That party could have consisted of 1 2600 mmr player and two who were lower.  If you had only three players already in the match that were all 1850, unless you were sitting there for a very long time waiting for the next match (see the new matchmaking wait times for high mmr players comments around the forum), three 2600 players could not have joined you - the deviation is too high.

 

I asked the players, they were all higher than 2600.   It had been a ~1900 lobby or somewhere around what my MMR was, where the max and min weren't very far off of that.  Then the next match consisted of the higher ranked players joining and most of my team leaving, but my new team still consisted of players from the previous match.  So yes, I can discern that my teams MMR was significantly less.

Edited by Singleton06, 14 August 2015 - 01:44 PM.

[Singleton06]

I find this exceedingly unlikely, as there are rarely enough 2600 MMR players on at once for it to occur, and ever rarer that they would choose to party up, as most of them are aware of the issues it creates. 

 

Even if it isn't that they are in a party, I still get put in matches through matchmaking where I'm ~500 - 600 MMR lower than the average.   It happens a lot, and it ruins it for me.

[Silverfire]

At least you find matches to play, I can rarely find matches and when I do, they're 1 star servers and average around 1700-1800 MMR. If I'm lucky I find something 1900 range. If I'm really lucky I find something 2k+ range and then I'm home free.

There's no good solution right now. Lower MMR players get high MMR players in their matches because high MMR players can't find anything in their range, causing complaints like this. Best long term fix is to simply get more players to increase the overall MMR pool, more types of all MMR. Easier said than done however.

[Silverfire]

Devs could tweak MMR system allowing easier gains and tougher losses to MMR. Could artificially inflate players' higher MMR to both help epeen and higher MMR player count. Not ideal though and would prefer against this.

[Hyginos]

Even if it isn't that they are in a party, I still get put in matches through matchmaking where I'm ~500 - 600 MMR lower than the average.   It happens a lot, and it ruins it for me.

 

Assuming that all those players are there when the team balancer does its thing those players will be placed on different teams, meaning that, thought you may be woefully outclassed, you should at least have a skilled player or two to prop you up.

 

Hot joins and leavers, however, will break the balance no matter what MMR or skill range they fall into. If you want balanced matches, I suggest trying never to leave a server unless it empties completely.

 

If, however, you're complaint is simply that you sometimes play with people who are better than you then I suggest a shift of mindset. Many would consider that opportunity a luxury.

[Amidatelion]

I find this exceedingly unlikely, as there are rarely enough 2600 MMR players on at once for it to occur, and ever rarer that they would choose to party up, as most of them are aware of the issues it creates. My guess is you were simply unfortunate enough to be on just before a certain team that doesn't normally play Hawken was to have a match, and some players chose to warm up together.

With that said, match balance is not robust to hot-joins or leavers. If a match is poorly balanced, it's often because someone left or joined after the teams were made.

There is, unfortunately, a group of 2600+ that party regularly. Not often, but regularly.

[mmm_yep]

Wow, this game is still alive! Nice to see it survived the transition. I also see some things never change. 

 

Been quite a while since I've sat in the pilot's seat. Just wanted to drop in and say hi. Carry on!

[ATX22]

There's no serious fix for the MM unless Reloaded wants to somehow block people's ability to easily create smurf accounts while "punishing" the really good players for being really good.  

 

Really good players migrate into servers with new to average players in Hawken on a regular basis right now.  You know you've overstayed your welcome on a server when the team balancer freaks out at the start of the match glitching a few times throwing nearly everyone on one team against one or two other people before giving up and setting a 50/50 split.  Once even one average MMR player end up on a server, all the high MMR players seem to gravitate towards it and it's goodbye team balance before the next map change.  It might help if the MM would stop chucking people into servers where the match is half over or more and favor seeding new servers or ones where the match is just starting.  But, the people at Reloaded are the experts, or will be hiring experts to deal with this, so I'm sure they'll come up with a solution.

Edited by ATX22, 16 August 2015 - 09:52 AM.

[StubbornPuppet]

^ATX22, "Well, sort of."

 

There is no good way to stop people from creating alt accounts (that doesn't punish the legit reasons), so they should work towards discouraging it.  Make it so that creating a smurf isn't worth the trouble.  That can be done in a way that actually helps legitimate newbies too.

 

FIRST: Fix the bug that lets players skip the tutorial.

 

SECOND: Make the tutorials deal with actual gameplay and longer, full match scenarios - so that a player must complete a series of objectives and prove that they've learned to play a complete match before they can get online in that game mode.  So, if they want to play Siege, they have to complete a full-fledged Siege tutorial match and win it... before they can ever get into a real Siege match.

 

THIRD:  Full MECH tutorials for each and every mech.  Once a player buys a mech for the first time, they should have to go through (and successfully complete) a tutorial that takes them through objectives that make them learn how to properly and effectively use that mechs weaponry and special ability... before they can actually use the mech in an online match.

 

As for team balance:

The biggest problem with team balance (in my opinion) is matches almost always start with 4-6 players.  Every match I've played that starts with a full lobby has really good team balance.  Just as with the smurfing problem, you have to use incentives... and a simple penalty.

 

FIRST: Take away the "Daily Win Bonus" unless the player was in the match from the moment it started.

 

SECOND: Add a multiplier bonus that increases for every consecutive, full-length match that a player completes on the same server.  The more matches you play in a row, the bigger your bonus gets (sure, it has to be capped somewhere).

 

THIRD: (As player population increases) make it so that more players are needed for a match to start.  Or, have players vote to reduce the number of total players allowed before the match starts.  The way the game adds players to matches in progress is totally logical, but we just don't have a high enough general population for matchmaker to find enough suitable joiners to allow matches to start with 4 - 6 players and still expect any kind of balance when a few more join at separate times later.  The balancer simply cannot predict the future and, once a match is in progress, we can't expect players to be willing to sit in an indefinite holding pattern for a match while the balancer waits for enough players to do the same before it makes it's team decision.

 

FOURTH: Gotta have a mild rage quit penalty. It's contentious, but I think that if a player quits a match before it's finished, they should have to wait 4 minutes before they can join any other matches.  I know that people will say, "things come up and I have to leave - why you punish me?"  Well, anything that 'comes up' that is important enough to take you away from a match before it's over is important enough that it should take you enough time that 4 minutes isn't a big deal.  And this would not apply to disconnects or crashes.  A person would have to select "quit", or type it into the console, or force close the program before the 4 minute rule is in effect.

[Anichkov3]

I would like to add one small explanation to the "my suggestions":

6) It refers to suggestion of the "rebalance players." Rebalance should be done only when the "new player" will start the match. Ie not immediately when the player joins the match. And only when he presses the ready to "start" the match. 

[ATX22]

I said "easily create smurf accounts", emphasis on "easily" for a reason; with a F2P game, it's nearly impossible to prevent people from creating multiple accounts without raising the requirements for creating an initial account too high.  The ideas you have for discouraging alternate accounts are good (I might take issue with no. 3), but require resources and time that Reloaded currently does not have.   Any near term solution is going to be quick and dirty out of necessity.  

 

On the topic of team balance.

 

1. Take away the daily win bonus for anyone not present at the start of the match and you promote people jumping out of servers where the match isn't nearly over, even ones only a minute in.  Once someone has obtained their daily bonus, the incentive to stay is also gone.

 

2.  There are already barriers to getting into the more advanced modes, I think you have to complete "x" number of matches before you can get into certain game types.  This would enhance that, which I think would help, but this requires resources and time that would likely push this solution beyond the release of the first completely new mechs to be released for Hawken.

 

3.  I'd rather only have a server accept new connections until hitting either the 50% mission completed mark, or at the very latest, 75%.  If all the players on a given team are disconnecting, be it rage-quitting or some other reason, I'm of the opinion that; that match needs to be allowed to quickly run its course and then attempt to pull in new players once that match is over.  That way players aren't getting pulled into "2 minutes of getting curb-stomped" to wait another ~3 minutes for the carousel/end-of-match stats/map-change/warm up, before getting to play a match from the start.  EDIT: and that's if at least 3 other people stick around and the server doesn't empty out.

 

4.  In F2P, I'd think you would want people to be on a server playing for the maximum amount of time possible, especially when the player base is so small.  The loopholes that you leave also  make it relatively easy to fool that system.  Penalties are already in place to punish leavers, if Reloaded find themselves having to devise new ways to punish people for not playing a completely free game that by its very nature is designed to draw people in and keep them playing for as long as possible with as few barriers as possible... something is very wrong with Hawken.

Edited by ATX22, 17 August 2015 - 02:31 PM.

[Splicer]

I've come back to the game after a very long hiatus (I fell victim to the password reset issues). I've been playing again for about a week and a half, and I don't know what the cause is but matches seem way more swingy than I remember. I've only played one or two well balanced matches to several dozen kerbstomps. Whatever the reason, it's really souring me on a game that I thoroughly enjoyed at release and was heartbroken to lose access to.

[NutsEater]

"Nuts is here"

 

Some are wrong, pro player will be very mad if they play with newbies, example is me, when i go on assault, newbies of course scary so i got killed with no cover, don't let pro play with newbies, all newbies play together would be better, play like that would make them happy and also help the Hawken game have more player, pro in there will kill more than newbies for sure, especially some newbies don't know anything and go without team will get killed, better don't compare newbies with pro, i was newbie too, when it happen for a lot of time, i stop playing Hawken for 1 year, now i just play again for 3 weeks 

[Anichkov3]

Comrades! I was thinking, and a few times in the game gets into a situation. Question about matchmaking ... My above presented proposals are reasonable and will actually work.

One huge "but." You seem not to understand what is the main problem of the game right now. This problem of "second account" (Smurfs, twinks). These people (generally the experienced players and bury the game. Because they can not normally play a balanced match. Because of their current "secondary account" is underreporting rating MMR (relative to the rating the present player).

 

It is rather difficult to come up with something to combat this phenomenon. As options offer:

 

1) When released the first patch for the game. Snap game to Steam account - so without running Steam, the game could not enter (now in the game can be run from a folder, bypassing Steam).

 

2) restrict the ability of new players (beginners) in the selection of the server. So that a novice could not play on servers with a score higher than 1750. Limit of game time in the match - for example, within the first 70 hours of play, the rookie will not be able to get in any way (either in a group or through a "quick start") in matches rated above 1750.

 

3) To check for the second account of all players with k/d = 3 (or more than 3) and with the amount of playing time of less than 100 hours (e.g., 10 to 100 hours). If you find these "suspects" to observe them (we now have are not so many players). And if indeed their skill level "high". So bring them in "special list" and increase his rating to 2700 MMR.

 

Why raise the rating? Because these fuzzy bunny and play to trample beginners. And in fact they buried the game (maybe they do not understand it now) - they are now the cause of almost every third unbalanced the game.

[HHJFTRU]

I'm gonna write this again.

Beginners should be separated from the rest of the players. In order to do that, dedicated bootcamp servers are needed which let in players that have less than 1500 MMR and less than 16 pilot level.

In addition, on the first few pilot levels, MMR calculation should be much faster than normal. This will put smurfs or super good new players out from the bootcamp servers quickly.

Thanks for reading this again.