Mercurysteam's Hangout

BARRACKS => Gameplay Feedback => Topic started by: Litch on January 17, 2019, 10:20:29 PM

Title: MMR, i have a suggestion, that will work better for low playerbase.
Post by: Litch on January 17, 2019, 10:20:29 PM
So currently your MMR system is a solid system no doubt, after reading how it works i can say that its not the system it self that is the problem, the problem with such a solid system is that it requires a decent playerbase to be able to match players correctly, the game does not have that currently.

My idea is to remove the MMR system entire for the moment, until the playerbase reaches an average per day that can sustain such a heavy system,

Now let me explain what you could replace it with for the time being,
Ideally imo a difficulty selector at the side of the adventure screen would be a better choice, you could level lock the difficulties. so for example
10%, 30%, 50%, 70%, 100%.

then only new players will able to pick the difficulties that would suit their level, also to add to this, make it so if you select a high enough difficulty but it cannot find players of said difficulty, the game would ask you if you mind lowering your difficulty. i mean overall, i'd rather faster games than unfair games.

the thing with this style of suggestion is no-one would ever play at a difficulty above their player level, New players would be still able to play at a completely acceptable level to their skill level. If i high level player was with them, yes it would be a breeze for said player, but thats far far superior to having 2 players quit right off the start, then the other just dying every 10 seconds, while you try to solo a mission intended for 4 players,

the worst part of these matches though, is the MMR usually drops like 10% from the high level players MMR, yet its still too difficult for the lower levels, thus usually ending up in a loss, This is big kick in the balls fora high MMR player, why? because the difficulty is much lower than their current MMR, when you lose, you lose like 5-7% MMR.

This takes about 5-10 games to re-increase to the same level and is too punishing for the person that tried their upmost hardest to complete the mission.

The only major downside i see to system, is that if your the hardcore mentality sort of player, where any challenge is an acceptable challenge, you are now level locked to what you can do. Though that said this sort of player, like myself would find ways to speed up said missions, find ways to make them go flawlessly, this is enough to keep that sort of player interested till they hit the next difficulty tier so to speak.

Anyways its just a suggestion, i hope it brings new ideas to the table for your development team. Thanks for reading :)
Title: Re: MMR, i have a suggestion, that will work better for low playerbase.
Post by: Placelord on January 17, 2019, 10:39:16 PM
I am curious as tho wether the player population is relatively low or not. There's no real dataon that. It certainly feels low when the q times are long, but I dunno.

I aggree, I'd rather have quick relative low reward matches than long punishing matches which will still yield low rewards. I do see a lot of low lv's dissert early on due to difficulty or imbalanced matches. I often wonder if the lv 1 harec that disconnects within the 1st few minutes will ever pick up the game again. I see it so often it's hard not to assume the game is bleeding players.

As to your alternative it's hard to tell if it would work without seeing it in action but I'd forsee it still having trouble in a low population environment. I dunno though.
Title: Re: MMR, i have a suggestion, that will work better for low playerbase.
Post by: Litch on January 18, 2019, 12:21:27 AM
I am curious as tho wether the player population is relatively low or not. There's no real dataon that. It certainly feels low when the q times are long, but I dunno.

I aggree, I'd rather have quick relative low reward matches than long punishing matches which will still yield low rewards. I do see a lot of low lv's dissert early on due to difficulty or imbalanced matches. I often wonder if the lv 1 harec that disconnects within the 1st few minutes will ever pick up the game again. I see it so often it's hard not to assume the game is bleeding players.

As to your alternative it's hard to tell if it would work without seeing it in action but I'd forsee it still having trouble in a low population environment. I dunno though.

Check steam charts dude, yes this is only PC. But by theory alone, if one playerbase on one platform is low, then the other platforms must be similar? the issues raised on these forums within the game are not one platform problems, they are all platform problems. Thus i think the theory of low player base is correct.

To the other thing you mentioned, it might still have its issues, dont get me wrong i aint saying it wont, what im saying is, this way will retain newer players, as the current system, as you say its bleeding new players. i've suggested the game to many of my frends, to be exact i'd say atleast 20 of them have tried it with me, you wanna know how many of them still play it? 2 (one of them is me)
Title: Re: MMR, i have a suggestion, that will work better for low playerbase.
Post by: Placelord on January 18, 2019, 01:36:14 AM
True the current system is not doing much to build confidence in new comers and should be addressed if the game is to retain any momentum. I am eagerly looking forward to seeing what steps are taken in the next couple of updates.
Title: Re: MMR, i have a suggestion, that will work better for low playerbase.
Post by: XjabberwockieX on January 28, 2019, 04:07:51 PM
If Spacelords retained half the low levels I have witnessed rage quit never to return again then business would be boomin. If they fix this problem by implementing the kind of locked difficulty settings that may make matches a breeze for more experienced players when paired with starting ones this game would be in a better state. Similar ideas have been brought forward quite a bit for months now and to my knowledge it has yet to be addressed. I run into players level 20 and under all the time even though I have high mmr and they have no business being put into a match they have no chance in. More than half the time they quit early and many I can't say I can recall ever seeing again. I'm not a programmer and I don't know how much work it would take to put a system like this in place but it needs it.
Title: Re: MMR, i have a suggestion, that will work better for low playerbase.
Post by: Uh, ok. on January 29, 2019, 01:01:40 AM
I'm not a programmer and I don't know how much work it would take to put a system like this in place but it needs it.
While some improvement to the MMR system would be helpful; I doubt they are going to scrap the system any time soon. My reasoning is that the big-wigs who really call the shots are far removed from the actual game play they develop.

For example, you are an employee who had a similar idea for a MMR change. You'd have to get the attention of a producer, a director and probably all of the department leads before you could even begin to make the proposal sound. And then you'd have to convince the CEO that it wasn't a huge waste of money.

They would ask you "Do we not already have a match making system?" and you would say "But, this one is more streamlined and fits our playerbase better." and finally, with a much more stern look while thumb and forefinger wrestle under chin, they would ask again "Do we not already have a match making system?"