Matchmaking and Threat

[vsb 6174]

1 minute ago, Salvick said:

 

Yeah, fun is an investment, never an expense, that's what I mean. As I see it, I don't make "purchases" of fun, but I invest on it instead. I wasn't meaning it like if we were part of the company.

ah that makes more sense

 

1 minute ago, Salvick said:

Nice forum posts count btw.

we post hard out here

[CommandantSteele 52]

Preface: This is full of opinions and "facts" that might be wrong. I do not speak as if I am correct, I speak from my view. Kay?

 

Threat as it stands feels fairly arbitrary. The only threat that really matters is silver atm, since if you're silver you can enter into any district you want without restrictions. Being bronze is slightly restrictive because you can only enter Bronze and Silver districts, but most of the time I feel like 99% of the APB playerbase is in those servers so it's not really that big of a deal.

 

That being said, Gold feels HUGELY restrictive because when the servers aren't at peak hours it feel like the biggest chunk of the APB playerbase plays in bronze which, as a gold, you can't join. I even encountered this earlier today where the silver waterfront district had ten criminals and ten enforcers and bronze waterfront had 20 ish of each.

 

What also sucks, and what I believe you plan on addressing, is being "borderline" between gold and silver. If I get stomped on and lose a few games I'll drop to silver, but if I play in bronze and win like... 1-2 games? Right back to gold I go, prompting rage whispers about golds in bronze even though I should be a silver. If I want to not near instantly turn back into a gold I have to intentionally gimp my play, which most people would call "dethreating", though I would argue there's a difference between intentionally playing sub-optimally (Mostly using non-meta weapons) and intentionally not attempting to contribute to the objective at all.

 

Anyway, what I'm not so keen on is phasing, as others have echoed. I would really rather not be phased into a district or instance where it was just my team and just the enemy team and nobody else. The game would feel very hollow and way too big if this were to be the case. Part of the charm of APB is zooming through another mission's gunfight trying to get to your own objective and, when unintentional, the occasional crashes with another player are a part of this charm. Sure it might be the make or break moment of the mission, but as long as it's not too consistent it's not so bad.

 

I can understand the desire to fix greifing and ghosting, but I wouldn't want to fix griefing and ghosting if it meant that every mission was just my team and the other team. Imagine Planetside 2, if you will. If you're on the ground as infantry you can only see and fight other infantry units. If you're in a vehicle, you can only see and fight other vehicles. If you're in an aircraft, you can only see and fight with other aircraft. This would make the experience a lot smoother, but it would rob one of the core features of Planetside 2: The unity of infantry, armored, and airborne combat.

 

You guys seem kinda gung-ho about phasing, but I would ask that you tread carefully and be willing to pull the plug if it doesn't work out so well.

[BlatMan 718]

I feel the current threat system does not show skill. Anyone can easily get gold if they get a few lucky wins with high score. I see it all the time. I see players increase in threat when scoring the lowest in the mission.

 

I think threat should be removed entirely, and matchmaking should focus on matching equal number of players to keep missions balanced. If there's a group, prioritize them to be matched with another group instead of randoms.

 

Also, I have 0 confidence in latency based matchmaking. The player population is too low for that to work. I quit playing PUBG because of their failed attempt at it. They have 100k+ players in game, yet most matches are filled with players from outside my region, even during my region's prime time.

Edited October 20, 2018 by MrsHappyPenguin

[Clandestine 390]

4 hours ago, Hexerin said:

Even if you hide threat level and remove district instance choice, it's still possible (and easy) to dethreat because it's an automated system.

Nothing will stop dethreating. Even if it would take 100 missions playing bad some people would do it.

[vsb 6174]

31 minutes ago, Freewind said:

I would really rather not be phased into a district or instance where it was just my team and just the enemy team and nobody else. The game would feel very hollow and way too big if this were to be the case.

 

2 hours ago, MattScott said:

We have to include multiple matches in the same instance, otherwise the server cost would be excessive. I also agree that we need to preserve the open world elements of having players in other matches running around as nice ambience to your own match.

 

[CommandantSteele 52]

3 minutes ago, BXNNXD said:

 

 

Oh. That's good. I missed that.

[Clandestine 390]

1 hour ago, Kusarixx said:

I dont think so, correct me if im wrong please, but i think phasing is instant. if its anything like WoW, i understand that Blizzard is a much more big company then this but it still would be the same right?

I kinda wonder how loading customization of other players would look like. Nowdays game is stuttering for first minute after joining the /d. Can't imagine having this multiple times in an hour unless phasing to another instance would be enough for some longer period of time.

[vsb 6174]

5 minutes ago, Clandestine said:

I kinda wonder how loading customization of other players would look like. Nowdays game is stuttering for first minute after joining the /d. Can't imagine having this multiple times in an hour unless phasing to another instance would be enough for some longer period of time.

theoretically the engine upgrade would either fix or improve stutters 

[Hexerin 1142]

54 minutes ago, Clandestine said:

Nothing will stop dethreating. Even if it would take 100 missions playing bad some people would do it.

Accepting reports, and then actually taking action on them, would be a very effective method to stop dethreating if Little Orbit had the integrity to actually go through with it (it's an exceptionally rare trait nowadays, so it's unsurprising). It wouldn't stop everyone, but then actioning people for aimbotting or wallhacking would never stop everyone from cheating in those ways either. There's always those "people" that are so far gone that nothing can get through to them... and unfortunately that's simply because there's no real world repercussions for their actions.

 

 

Edited October 20, 2018 by Hexerin

[Clandestine 390]

1 minute ago, Hexerin said:

Accepting reports, and then actually taking action on them, is a very effective method to stop dethreating. It won't stop everyone, but then actioning people for aimbotting or wallhacking will never stop everyone from cheating in those ways either. There's always those "people" that are so far gone that nothing can get through to them... and unfortunately that's simply because there's no real world repercussions for their actions.

Yeah you can probably get the obvious ones with demerits etc and with working support but if someone is going to play bad on an alt you won't even realize the grander scheme

[Hexerin 1142]

Just now, Clandestine said:

Yeah you can probably get the obvious ones with demerits etc and with working support but if someone is going to play bad on an alt you won't even realize the grander scheme

It's beyond easy to tell the difference between an unskilled player and a dethreater, that isn't a valid argument/excuse.

[Clandestine 390]

1 minute ago, Hexerin said:

It's beyond easy to tell the difference between an unskilled player and a dethreater, that isn't a valid argument/excuse.

it's also easy to emulate the unskilled gameplay as R20

[Hexerin 1142]

1 minute ago, Clandestine said:

it's also easy to emulate the unskilled gameplay as R20

The fact that you're so fervently defending dethreating makes it abundantly clear that you're part of the problem. Either you're a dethreater yourself, or one your buddies is.

[Clandestine 390]

Just now, Hexerin said:

The fact that you're so fervently defending dethreating makes it abundantly clear that you're part of the problem. Either you're a dethreater yourself, or one your buddies is.

So simply disagreeing with you on it equals defending dethreating. Interesting

[vsb 6174]

2 minutes ago, Hexerin said:

The fact that you're so fervently defending dethreating makes it abundantly clear that you're part of the problem. Either you're a dethreater yourself, or one your buddies is.

ran out of arguments, better toss out some baseless accusations

 

debate club ex-champion right here

[Kewlin 692]

I know this isn't directly on topic, but what are your thoughts on asymmetrical threats in missions? Basically, I'm referring to the fact that one mission you might have 2 Golds versus 1 Gold and 2 Silvers, or 4 Silvers, or maybe even 2 Silvers and 3 Bronzes.

 

I personally like this and think it adds variety to gameplay, but I can also see people seeing it as an issue (especially in kill stages, where the team with fewer higher threat players will virtually always win.)

 

Any comments on this?

 

 

Also, kind of off of what other people said, you mentioned players out of your mission as "ambiance," but I think most APB players can attest to them being much more than that, E.G. when you drive into them, both going 23m/s, and you both fly into the air and one of you lands on a building. APB is, first and foremost, a silly fun game, and I see this as adding to the game, not hindering it, and I just want to make sure we're all on the same page and you're not suggesting some kind of ghosting feature where you can only see players out of your mission, not collide with them.

 

Though I wouldn't mind if certain things were reduced for players out of missions, E.G. removing OSMAW wind-up sounds and grenade beeps, and potentially reducing the transparency of explosions. I can't tell you how many times I've almost crapped my pants 'cause someone in another mission started winding up and OSMAW or threw a frag near me. But that's. . . well, that's pretty fucking off-topic at this point isn't it? MB.

[Clandestine 390]

2 minutes ago, BXNNXD said:

ran out of arguments, better toss out some baseless accusations

 

debate club ex-champion right here

Thanks. I guess I'm fully briefed now.

[NotZombieBiscuit 3146]

Inb4 this thread is filled with people asking for higher threat levels again without even realising how the threat system works.

[vsb 6174]

22 minutes ago, Clandestine said:

Thanks. I guess I'm fully briefed now.

why exactly were you forum surfing in the nude?

[Clandestine 390]

3 minutes ago, BXNNXD said:

why exactly were you forum surfing in the nude?

Blind dates are (can be) exciting

[vsb 6174]

6 minutes ago, Clandestine said:

Blind dates are (can be) exciting

if you show up to a blind date and the other person is nude, is that a guaranteed smash?

 

fuck this was a serious thread, my bad

[Clandestine 390]

1 minute ago, BXNNXD said:

if you show up to a blind date and the other person is nude, is that a guaranteed smash?

 

fuck this was a serious thread, my bad

If it's nude I'm sending it to Asylum.

Ya we better respect this thread and go back on rails

[vsb 6174]

1 minute ago, Clandestine said:

Ya we better respect this thread and go back on rails

how would you feel about dynamic threat levels - i.e. only a certain % of the population can be gold/silver/bronze/green at any given time (if someone upthreats to gold it means someone else dethreated to silver)

 

[Clandestine 390]

6 minutes ago, BXNNXD said:

how would you feel about dynamic threat levels - i.e. only a certain % of the population can be gold/silver/bronze/green at any given time (if someone upthreats to gold it means someone else dethreated to silver)

 

That's tricky to first determine which % would be correct especially now where most players are playing long enough to be good. Other than that it wouldn't bother me really if I would lose gold on some bad day.

[Hennessy 1]

This sound like an actual idea that has been discussed throughout the staff and if it gets to work then new players might come, old players might come etc. etc. Mainly because new players probably come everyday and end up leaving because they're just getting wrecked and an issue I've noticed - they don't really know who to shoot when in a mission, the neutral players confuse them a lot. Maybe a change to tutorial would be nice.