Such matchmaking systems work in PvP games. Ranks and ratings are a thing for a decade. The World of Warships ranking system is pretty much perfect, not only in terms of challenge but in terms of matchmaking time. PvE matchmaking would be even easier.
However it would defeat the purpose of the random matchmaking in dungeons. We already had a good-enough matchmaking system before them, called “guilds”. The purpose of random teams is to carry morons and slackers. Experienced teammates are purposefully lured into this cesspit by rewards (legendary drops from LFR?!) to carry the rest.
The reason is that the morons and slackers want rewards, want progress, but don’t want to get better. They want to get carried. They are the reason for toxicity in PvE groups. Please note that I didn’t say “source”. Hate can easily come from a rightfully frustrated good player who is responding to the situation in a wrongful way. The below-hunterpet “teammate” didn’t particularly asked for his boosting. He just queued up. Hell, he might even hate the situation and prefer to be with peers. But even if he is a slacker wanting a ride, not like he selected an “I want a ride” option somewhere.
Game developers do this because the alternative would be losing the morons and slackers who can neither live without rewards (like the casuals) nor have the brains or patience to earn them.
I think a niche game could focus on this. Advertise itself with its sophisticated PvE rating system and automatic matchmaking based on rating. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be sophisticated to work perfectly, they could just use tiers and stars like World of Warships. I and Tobold would play it instantly with love. But it would be a 100K subscriber game and not a WoW-killer and no one finances those.
@Gevlon
“The World of Warships ranking system is pretty much perfect, not only in terms of challenge but in terms of matchmaking time”
So how would your game’s matchmaker work knowing the following:
1. Morons and Slackers exist. So they will exist in any game ever to be made. If you use “skill” as matchmaking modifier in totally “random” groups, how do you prevent carrying during the initial stages? Also, and more importantly, how do you prevent the M&S from affecting other players when they purposefully throw matches or affect a “good player’s” ability to rate up?
2. Unless you are talking specifically about a “subscription only” type of game, without the ability for M&S to”wallet warrior” their way into premium/rated time, or the ability to buy their way into rated status(owning T-10 without the skill to properly play them), you’re going to be facing the same problems with M&S regardless of the type of matchmaker that you use. You simply cannot compare WoWS matchmaker against a subscription funded game knowing this. The player dynamics are going to be totally different between such systems.
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@Noguff: in World of Warships everyone who owns a T10 ship can participate in ranked battles, starting from rank 23. By winning he gets “stars”, by losing he loses them. If someone is bad, he will cause his team lose, therefore losing stars.
Players are matchmade into brackets. 2-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-23 are the brackets. If you can’t advance because you lose games, you’ll be stuck in lower brackets, unable to affect the games of better players.
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Or in an MMORPG before you can queue you have to get initial rank from Target Dummies measuring your DPS. Or 4 Target Dummies simulating a tank and 3 DPS losing health and you have to heal them. Of course while you have to look for AOE dmg on the ground.
You get a rank from 20-30 with Target Dummies, then progress from 20-1 in the queue system. This way there is 10 steps between the bad and excellent players in the initial phase.
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I think that your assessment is true for situations where random people are thrown together and there is no incentive to play “socially”, i.e. cooperating and not getting “every possible” kill, but acting smart and securing the team victory.
When MMO games allow for better in-game communications (EVE still has the best communication infrastructure of all games) small teams can group and cooperate following a common strategy.
And this is exactly what I am curious about: Could Gevlon perform better in WoWS when he teams up with players from his clan who use discord to discuss tactics (not their penis size or other TROLL BS…), like putting up air cover or attacking a target from different angles.
There would not be need for endless talks, simply picking a target, concentrating fire, organising angles of attack, warning teammates if a threat is turning up behind an island…
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@Smite: I don’t have a clan and don’t plan to have one. I have a formal clan where I invite anybody to farm resources for the clan bonuses.
I don’t think that communication besides the basic strategy at the start is needed or helpful, as it distracts players from doing their jobs.
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Gevlon you say you dont have a plan or ever plan to have one… but: Imagine if you were to have a group of people join wows. Joining your clan. subscribing to your rules. All operating under the single theory we follow the goblins strategy. If it turns out wrong he will change it. Now I imagine your raising a paw in horror here. I know your views about following leaders off cliffs. Yet thats not what this is. this is us backing your play and enabling you to prove by brute force of numbers and inflating your statistical size that your theories are either incorrect or truth.
You have a small, but hardcore fan base that even if we dont always agree we are willing to hear you out. Use us. Let us help. you may be surprised by what we can do to assist your project if you set it up properly.
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@nightgerbil: the game isn’t some complicated one. To it’s heart, it’s an FPS, with the spice of slow turning and server-side visibility and hit checks. There isn’t much to gain from organizing.
Most importantly, the ranking system enforces solo queuing. You can bring friends to random games and you can probably dominate them (the infamous CV divisions), but nobody cares, because randoms just give XP and gold and those come with normal play aplenty.
There are clan wars where you fight other clans, but they are also organized and following a leader, so there your idea isn’t any new or interesting. If thats the kind of play you want, you can join ANY clan that does clan wars after you reached your first T10 ship and have a decent (solo) rank with it.
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“I don’t think that communication besides the basic strategy at the start is needed or helpful, as it distracts players from doing their jobs.”
This is quite solid advice. These aren’t “pro team-mates” here, this is a “side” made up of ad hoc volunteers. The best strategy is to treat them like children or dogs; Use only a few simple rules.
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The problem with WoW LFD isn’t that everyone wants to skate, it’s that everyone CAN skate. People will execute the minimum effort to execute the maximum reward.
Of course, if you make it harder to compensate, with the devs thinking “Grr! These skaters! Well, it’s not challenging enough, then!” you decimate the numbers of players willing to go through the hassle at all.
And player count is the meter in a AAA title. Require AAA polish, get AAA results in player quality.
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“I don’t think that communication besides the basic strategy at the start is needed or helpful, as it distracts players from doing their jobs.”
It depends. If a decent player comes by then communication can really help. Organizing 2 DDs to ambush and quickly kill an enemy solo DD can’t be done without at least some chat input.
On the other hand, communicating with idiots will just tilt you, so there is no point.
Lastly, you have your own strategy so there is no point communicating. People don’t know what you are doing and you don’t have time to explain it in every game. People who play according to well-established strategies get much more value from talking.
By the way, R1 is done, 60% WR, 144 games. YueYang master race. Unfortunately, I never got to kick your ass, every time a game started I was hoping I’d be able to “Stawek sends his regards” you 😛
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By the way, give us a few replays of your games. They can be sped up and watched very quickly.
https://na.wargaming.net/support/en/products/wows/article/19060/
is how you enable replays.
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Hm… I understand your point of view, although you dismiss the fact that, while the game idea is simple, achieving and securing victory is not always easy. A match quickly becomes “complicated” as we have a non-linear system here, where situations can evolve rather quickly and in an unpredictable way. Therefore, adaptation to new situations is needed and that might require some communication and vocal comms are way faster than the in-game chat.
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This game is by no means simple. Not at all.
Rules are much more complicated than any shooter by the quirky vision system, shell trajectories and angling affecting damage.
Then you multiply the complexity by the need to plan in advance, as ships have massive inertias and slow turn speeds.
Gevlon misses almost all of that complexity by playing the gimped version of the game in IJN destroyers.
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