Yes leavers are a problem but it is self induced. Leaving makes the issue worse and extends the time in which the ratings will remain unstable. Honestly...they cause that problem. Not Cryptic. They do. The sooner the immature leaving stops the sooner the system will work correctly.
I just find it ironic that these people who happen to have 8 hours of free time each day to play neverwinter will somehow then rationalize that they have "a lot of stuff to do" and so they cannot play out the match
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited March 2014
As to why not make a premade and a solo queue...
Because that is not a matchmaking system.
That is saying because there is no oranges we need apples.
A premade queue is not a solution to lopsided matches. News flash not everybody who is in a premade are geared up the wazoo nor is non-premade groups all the same skill level.
It's something to consider on top of matchmaking but is point blank, no question, can't be justified in your wildest dreams, a solution to a matchmaking system.
For the love of goodness gracious please stop. It doesn't make a bit of sense.
You missed the point entirely, player base is too small for the match making to work as the devs expect it to, unless you are willing to deal with 30+ minute Q times .
You also overlooked that new players, or established players new alts will skew the matchmaking continually, because they too will have to pvp for their rank to stabilize, so it is entirely possible that ELO might never stabilize, thus we will continue to get lopsided matchmaking ...
As for the full premade Q/semi premade Q/solo Q, I agree that it isn't ideal matchmaking, it could even be added alongside of ELO (or ELO like matchmaking system) it would go a long way to help solo players not get stomped by premades, how is this not matchmaking??? As it stands I am pretty sure this is one of the main reasons pvp matches are so lopsided, 9 times out of 10 we roflstomp the other team, even when we are just a semi premade, why? because we are fighting people that have solo Queued, and we are on TS countering their every move .
gear matching for the sake of gathering a group together... if that were implemented today, i could go into the match with all blues and once i've been matched waiting for the game to start, i could swap into my BiS gear and then proceed to troll and grief the opposing team.
a solution to this would be to disallow gear swapping in a match, but i think that should be a requirement anyway. at least while on the battlefield. but if they were to implement some kind of gear matching, it would have to be restricted.
gear matching would likely cause queue delays unless they had some way to dial down the requirements. let's say i have one r7 but the rest rank 5s and a lesser soulforged and a greater bilethorn. is it fair to match me with someone with a greater or perfect soulforged with all r7s? wouldn't that also kill the diversity in builds? even though tenacity has been introduced with tenacity gear, tenacity gear is not required to enter the pvp arena. therefore build diversity is still highly possible with the current system. if i have to think about my gear decisions to make sure i'm going to be able to queue is sort of ridiculous.
here is what wikipedia says about the elo rating system:
A number represents a player's Elo rating and increases or decreases based upon the outcome of games between rated players. After every game, the winning player takes points from the losing one. The difference between the ratings of the winner and loser determines the total number of points gained or lost after a game. In a series of games between a high-rated player and a low-rated player, the high-rated player is expected to score more wins. If the high-rated player wins, then only a few rating points will be taken from the low-rated player whereas if the lower rated player scores an upset win, then many rating points will be transferred. The lower rated player will also gain a few points from the higher rated player in the event of a draw. The rating system thus is self-correcting. A player whose rating is too low should, in the long run, do better than the rating system predicts and thereby gain rating points until the rating reflects his or her true playing strength.
so it would seem that the basis of the system is to try to match players as close as possible but when that is not possible, it will put mismatched teams together. how strict that is depends on variable controls. early on in the implementation of the system, it's probably advantageous to dial it down to make the requirements less strict. as more matches are played, there may come a time to dial it up to be more strict.
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adernathMember, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
gear matching would likely cause queue delays unless they had some way to dial down the requirements. let's say i have one r7 but the rest rank 5s and a lesser soulforged and a greater bilethorn. is it fair to match me with someone with a greater or perfect soulforged with all r7s? wouldn't that also kill the diversity in builds? even though tenacity has been introduced with tenacity gear, tenacity gear is not required to enter the pvp arena. therefore build diversity is still highly possible with the current system. if i have to think about my gear decisions to make sure i'm going to be able to queue is sort of ridiculous.
I think my suggestion (have an optional pvp queue in which all enchants are disabled) is the simplest, because in this scenario you dont really have to introduce different gear margins. To reduce the diversification in builds by taking out the enchants is IMO a 'disadvantage' I would accept when queueing. Usually ego shooters dont have a diversification either, still they make fun And still you can diversify with feats (even better if we would have dualspec).
here is what wikipedia says about the elo rating system:
<snip>
Again no need to explain ELO. ELO doesnt care about your gear, it cares only about your overall performance (the result of gear+skill+class). If for simplicity your overall performance doesnt change, then you will end up in a margin with 50% win chance when the number of matches tend to infinity. If you further assume that people develop different degrees of skill, then gear mismatches can happen even after many matches. Some people like me dont like this scenario (i.e. they like to have a win chance dependent entirely on their skill when the number of matches tend to infinity).
Suggestions to improve NW:
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
A ladder system could alleviate the problem, minus 12K GS players go up against each other, between 12K-15K GS players go up against each other, and 15K+ go up against each other, the only problem with this is different classes have different gear scores, they would have to determine an equivalent bracket for each class, for example an 18,5K GS GF is equal to a 16K GS GWF which is equal to a 15K TR etc this would put you in the 15K+ bracket (pulled these numbers out of my @ss just to be clear), they would have to remove the possibility to swap gear as soon as you enter Q .
As for weapon or armor enchants they could also create something like an enchantment score (ES), lessers would give you less points than perfects obviously, they could then add an ES bracket to the ladder system ...
I have put very little though into this, a whole team of devs should easily come up with a better system .
Essence of Aggression, OG PvP GWF
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited March 2014
That is why gear is not considered.
It doesn't matter how good your gear is if you don't put it to good use. Gear can either compensate for a lack of playskill or playskill can compensate for a lack of gear.
There is no valid argument that either type of player should be matched directly based on Gear Score as both situations will result in a person winning or losing A LOT. Gear mismatches are going to happen and should happen because gear is not in any way shape or form an accurate way to judge players.
Some players will need a higher gear score than others to be competitive and some players will be extremely competitive with lower gear score. That is the key essential point blank fact of the matter why the Elo System is used over gear scores. There are very few opinions I will ever say are "wrong" but saying that you want gear to be a driving factor is wrong because it will drive less skilled players to perpetually lose and more skilled players to perpetually win. And that just can not be justified. I am sorry but it can not be justified!
Then us 16K+ GS players with BiS gear will just have to get used to getting matched with (or against) 7K GS players, it is unfair to us when they are on our team and it is even more unfair to them when they are on the other side .
I am not arguing the fact that on paper ELO is nice, but in reality it is wonky at best, I personally never said I want gear to be a driving factor, skill trumps GS in most cases (to a certain degree), my previous post was an idea of a system that might work, because in the mean time ELO does not, and probably never will work, fair/even matchmaking with ELO is a pipe dream .
Essence of Aggression, OG PvP GWF
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited March 2014
That is happening because the system is still unstable. You may be ranked lower than you should be and/or they are ranked higher than they should be. As time goes on that will decrease as the other players scores will stabilize where they need to be.
And as a general rule of thumb the population of players will always be in the middle.
While Cryptic will strive to make matches at either end as fast and enjoyable as possible the fact of the matter is there is factually less players on either end of the spectrum. As such there is a consideration to be had between fast queues and ideally balanced matches.
And that is a factual aspect of the player populations of all games. There are always less people on the top and bottom and putting people based on Gear Score will not solve that. No matter what game you play this is the way it functions as this is how populations are naturally distributed.
What can be done is tightening restrictions on the match making limitations but that will result in longer queue times.
This is something the devs have been looking at behind the scenes but it again will take.time to find a sweet spot in the queue limits and in players getting accurately rated to begin with.
It doesn't matter how good your gear is if you don't put it to good use. Gear can either compensate for a lack of playskill or playskill can compensate for a lack of gear.
There is no valid argument that either type of player should be matched directly based on Gear Score as both situations will result in a person winning or losing A LOT. Gear mismatches are going to happen and should happen because gear is not in any way shape or form an accurate way to judge players.
Some players will need a higher gear score than others to be competitive and some players will be extremely competitive with lower gear score. That is the key essential point blank fact of the matter why the Elo System is used over gear scores. There are very few opinions I will ever say are "wrong" but saying that you want gear to be a driving factor is wrong because it will drive less skilled players to perpetually lose and more skilled players to perpetually win. And that just can not be justified. I am sorry but it can not be justified!
Of course there is a very valid argument: Take aside various classes for a moment, then your win-loss ratio in this scenario would be be based entirely on your skill. If you lack in skill you will lose more often, that is the hard way, but fair PvP.
I dont understand why are you seriously arguing that gear should compensate lack in skill. This is exactly what we do NOT want. We do NOT want a compensation of skill by gear which ELO creates. Since it is not possible to set up our own matches, all we demand the possibility to join an alternative PvP queue in which gear doesnt play a role (it would be sufficient to disable all enchants).
Suggestions to improve NW:
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
Since it is not possible to set up our own matches, all we demand the possibility to join an alternative PvP queue in which gear doesnt play a role (it would be sufficient to disable all enchants).
i'm pretty sure the ability to set up custom matches will be an option in the future.
So based on the current trend of posts on this thread, here's my question. Why not do away with the level 50 pvp matches and just incorporate them into the level 60 matches if Elo is going to "balance out" the gear mismatching through it's ranking system?
The first counterargument to this question is the level 50-59 players don't have all their skills yet as compared to the level 60 players. But, according to some of the logic that is being put forth in this thread in justifying the Level 60 matchup, this should also be eventually balanced out by the Elo ranking system.
As a reminder, my original post wasn't about gear score. It was about overall gear level matching and that I think it's too extreme in range to be classified as a single level 60. I personally think the gear level crosses at least 1 more level (eg. there should be a level 61). Don't get me wrong, I do like disparity between players otherwise we would all be playing the exact same characters. I just think in it's current form that it's too wide a range (extreme). And it's these extreme matches and only these extreme matches that should be addressed in some fashion so they don't exist anymore.
All the rest of the mismatches need to remain and the players need to learn how to play better tactics.
Just like there is a certain gearscore requirment for most high level dungeons it only seems logical to have a gearscore for cetrain ranks of pvp, I love the idea. Fully support
AH, specific premade vs premade! I didn't actually know about that STO feature, that's pretty neat. We are planning more long term support for PvP and have some already in the works. This feature is definitely something we could do relatively easily, though we are locking down our next module at the moment so it probably wont come out soon.
I think something else may be coming to at least partially scratch the premade vs premade itch you have... Keep an eye out for upcoming news posts about our next module.
So based on the current trend of posts on this thread, here's my question. Why not do away with the level 50 pvp matches and just incorporate them into the level 60 matches if Elo is going to "balance out" the gear mismatching through it's ranking system?
The first counterargument to this question is the level 50-59 players don't have all their skills yet as compared to the level 60 players. But, according to some of the logic that is being put forth in this thread in justifying the Level 60 matchup, this should also be eventually balanced out by the Elo ranking system.
I could be wrong and would love to hear why.
Sharandar boons and dailies, dread ring boons and dailies, like you said not enough skill points and feats, the gear imbalance is too much that it will take an even longer time (than it already is) to keep finding appropriate matches for you.
Too many reasons to not implement this. Too many factors to calculate, will make ELO even more horrible than it already is. They should not implement it just to justify and defend themselves against your argument.
the problem is not with your ELO rating but theirs.
If you have played 200 matches than your ELO should be pretty static by now but if you take another player that only has played say 5-10 matches than his could be wildly in flux. Depending on who they got teamed with in their first few matches they could have a wildly inflated ELO compared to their actual skill as the ELO rating for the win is based on team rating and not individual rating.
This is why the elo system will never work in Neverwinter. There are always an influx of new pvp players + pvp players that only play rarely. They say it takes time. Just wait. Time. Maybe months. MONTHS! lol. In months there will be so much turnover in the pvp playerbase that the system can never really become stable. Time. The problem is time. Long ques = less matches played = more turnover = even longer time for the thing to become stable.
Simple solution:
League play and pugs:
Pug q's will always be random based on nothing other than no more than only individuals q'ing.
League q's would require registered premade, named, teams. A ladder. TEAM RANKS, not individuals. As long as three of the original players who were present when the team was registered are present, they can fill out the rest of the team with anyone else who accepts the invite.
Pugs will always be problematic simply because NWO is so gear centric. By gear-centric I mean things like vorpal. Crit severity should NEVER be based in an item, but rather in a class build. Gear has no negative counterbalance. Class build decisions can always come at the cost of choosing against an equally good build option.
The point of pugging in my example would be to facilitate the creation of premades. You finally find a group you are in synch with and you make a premade and then register in the league. Yes a good pug with r7's and greater enchants will not beat a good premade with rank9's and perfects, but I'll bet that r7/greater team places in the top 20-40% which is pretty darn good, especially if there are thousands of teams.
PanzerJäger HR Hybrid Jugger Conq GF
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adernathMember, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Well actually he is arguing that skill compensates a lack of gear.
Other way around buddy
Nope. He was arguing that both ways should be present, while i was arguing - and demanding - that gear should not matter regardless in which way. On my HR for example I played very many matches, yet I am still grouped up with - and against - people with 4-5k GS more than me. Not because I am full blue/green, but because of their enchants. They make a tremendous difference.
Suggestions to improve NW:
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
btw about ladders- this works for thousands of games (about 13 million players use it and it has been around over 10 years) and is as simple as it gets: http://www.igl.net/
The Ranking System - Top
Case's Ladder has one of the simplest ranking systems ever used for competitive play. We call it a "Ladder" because each member holds a unique rank or "rung" that represents their standing among other members. The highest-ranked member holds the #1 Ladder position; someone ranked #2 is ranked below the #1 member. The goal is to "climb" the Ladder all the way to the top!
When you first join you are placed in an "unranked" category on the Ladder, and you become "ranked" after winning your first Ladder match. When you defeat a higher-ranked member, you move up in rank half the distance between their rank and your own. For example, if you are ranked #50 and you defeat the #1-ranked member, then your new rank would be #25. Your rank on the Ladder does not go down if you lose a match unless your opponent is ranked DIRECTLY below you. When members ranked below you are victorious against members ranked above you, it's possible the member will jump over you in rank and you will move down one rung.
I played spades for many years on this ladder, my team was #9 out of 30k people on that ladder. Encourage team play, facilitate premades. IT IS A GROUP GAME ANYWAYS. A GROUP GAME. Make people register teams. Rank the teams. In a perfect world pugs would be all 1v1. You throw 5 random people in a group vs 5 other random people and it is a clown show, will always be a clown show.
PanzerJäger HR Hybrid Jugger Conq GF
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adernathMember, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Make people register teams. Rank the teams. In a perfect world pugs would be all 1v1. You throw 5 random people in a group vs 5 other random people and it is a clown show, will always be a clown show.
Yes, this is another suggestion which I find very natural. But random queueing can be made good as well IMO if all enchants are taken out of the game or you have GS margins (of maybe 2k each margin). Not everyone is in the mood to get 4 buddies and play on a regular basis. I'd like to join a PvP match and enjoy it when I desire.
Suggestions to improve NW:
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
Yes, this is another suggestion which I find very natural. But random queueing can be made good as well IMO if all enchants are taken out of the game or you have GS margins (of maybe 2k each margin). Not everyone is in the mood to get 4 buddies and play on a regular basis. I'd like to join a PvP match and enjoy it when I desire.
Well GS matchmaking as pointed out is a huge problem because it is easily exploited in many ways. Taking all enchants out means less incentive for people to either play the game to earn them, or straight out buy them. Neverwinter is WAAAYYY too gear oriented and that is a problem that just can't be solved, will always cause high player turnover which consequently will bugger any matchmaking system that requires the same players playing many matches over a period of time.
btw "forcing pugs to be premades" need not be such a huge issue. To kill two birds with one stone- all of the players currently in q for a pug could simply show on a players list (much like friends list), and we could invite from there. When two groups of five emerge, you have your match.
PanzerJäger HR Hybrid Jugger Conq GF
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adernathMember, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Well GS matchmaking as pointed out is a huge problem because it is easily exploited in many ways. Taking all enchants out means less incentive for people to either play the game to earn them, or straight out buy them. Neverwinter is WAAAYYY too gear oriented and that is a problem that just can't be solved, will always cause high player turnover which consequently will bugger any matchmaking system that requires the same players playing many matches over a period of time.
On the other hand there are people who would like to play more if these issues are resolved. With module 3 people can still use all their equipment to fight against others, while in a more 'professional' leage that equipment would be disabled. I dont think that people will stop improving their toons in that scenario. It would on the other hand make alot more fun imo.
***
And another point is that honor should be given according to the end standings... it is very stupid if you played in a match lasting 30min and get only a few honor points just because it was a close loss. This is a crazy time sink for little gain. Especially if you play very often -and assuming that your skill and gear doesnt change - you are very likely grouped into a match in with you have 50% win chance. This is independent if you lack in skill or if you shine in skill - and in the end you may have a close loss.
Suggestions to improve NW:
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
Anyone knows that without a decent melee player on your team gwf or gf and the other team has them your doomed to lose, so why doesnt the game understand that? http://gyazo.com/0927d5d1490b19c8c296d22e54a5681f
This is mostly due to the elo system not matching matches like it should.
Waaaaaay too many times in the passed couple of weeks I've been put into matches where the gaps in power were just way too great. We either lose by over 700 points or win by over 700 points.
assuming that the elo system isn't matching matches like it should is based on what factual information exactly? how fast you're getting queued into pvp?
the theory that a higher gear score should be an indicator of a higher ranked player is a really bad theory. i see dozens of complaints here on the forums about bad pugs and people running to the home base or single players running to the center cap... or players fighting off cap... but your limited to view your own teams gs, not to mention who knows if gear swapping happens which could affect this theory or if people are playing for the kill, not the mechanics of capping nodes. and then there's the possibility that someone has a high gs but is a casual pvper.
gs does not equal elo rank. if gear score was the indicator of a skilled player, then i'm sure the matchmaking system would have been built around it but the fact is, it isn't. and it wasn't.
in my view based on my play style, the new matchmaker system works perfectly for me. it is a far better experience today than it was before. and i can understand why people that like to set up custom matches aren't having fun with queuing premades because they were able to manipulate the queue before to match up against premade teams they wanted to play. today, they can't do that because of the leaver penalty. hopefully, PWE will get a custom match option in there shortly after module 3 drops. there's no reason why people shouldn't have a variety of options based on their play styles... all within reason, of course. too many queue options would make pvp's queue times horrible... unless they were listed as "preferences" and the these preferences could be throttled up or down depending on queue times.
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adernathMember, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
the theory that a higher gear score should be an indicator of a higher ranked player is a really bad theory.
No one said that skill and gear is coupled in any way. But if you buff up your toon like crazy and go into PvP, you should end up in a bracket where people have similar gear than you. I consider everything else as twinking and p2 ... you know
gs does not equal elo rank. if gear score was the indicator of a skilled player, then i'm sure the matchmaking system would have been built around it but the fact is, it isn't. and it wasn't.
Yes, this is the point: GS does not have anything to do with ELO. Only the overal performance matters.
So in the current system it is absoutely irrelevant if you play a squishy PvE CW with totally messed up feats or a Sentinel GWF with r10s: If you play many matches, you will end up in a margin where you will have 50% win chance. It doesnt matter what you play or how good you are.
And this is the point which I do not like with the current system: I want to have a win chance according to my skill only.
in my view based on my play style, the new matchmaker system works perfectly for me. it is a far better experience today than it was before.
I too made the same experience. But if you play more often you will understand what I want to say: If you play many matches, you will usually end up in matches where your chance to win is ~50%. Regardless of how good or bad you are - you will not have an influence on it. It sounds funny because you think that skill will influence it, but this is already included in the probability this is how ELO works. Usually these matches are quite close and long and if you loose even with a small gap you gain very low honor for alot time invested. My point is that skill should have influence on the outcome of a match. This works only if you take the gear differences into consideration when matchmaking.
Suggestions to improve NW:
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
To me, the PvP changes helped to improve the experience. Before the changes, i got 99% of the matches that were unbalanced. 70% of the times my team crushing the enemy, ragequit in the first minutes and then just wait. 29% of the times my team being crushed, then a couple of quits and then me enjoying a long wait at the campfire (going down just to get swarmed 4-5v1 is so stupid and nonsense i don't even consider it). 1% of the time i could join a balanced match. Was either a very lucky pug match, or being the 5th man in a premade v premade match.
Now, i can say 50% of the times i get balanced games, and 50% of the times i get unbalanced games. With, also, the difference that right now people keep fighting. They may lose 1000-500, but they still try to cap points, kill enemies and earn points.
Also, the blue PvP gear is sold for so much AD in the AH that people is encouraged to play and try to be the top scorer.
2 simple changes that, imho, would fix the remaining issues of PvP matchmaking:
- allow a separate queue for preformed groups to play against other random preformed groups
- allow the normal queue to be used only if not in a Group
- introduce a mid-game scramble system to auto-balance a match being too unbalanced:
at 150 points difference in score, 1st grade scramble: the system auto-scrambles the teams based on performance during the match (score). The losing team gets a little buff for a short period of time.
if the game is still not balanced and the score difference increases, at 250 points difference in score, 2nd grade scramble: the 2 best players (score) of the winning team go to the losing team, and the 2 worst players (score) of the losing team go to the winning team. Buff to the losing team is extended.
These changes could get rid of the premade vs pug issue. It's getting worst right now for a simple reason: people started to LFG for PvP too, a lot more. "LFM 15k GS DPS FOR PVP" exc... are more frequent. Must get rid of it. You go premade, you get matched against other premades. You queue alone, you go pug.
The scramble system, if working well, could get rid of the remaining unbalanced games, through a re-mixing of the teams.
After that, can introduce a "inactivity prevention system".
- Staying in spawn area for more than 2 minutes will result in the player being kicked out of the game and getting the quitter penalty.
- Staying dead and do not respawn for more than 2 minutes will result in the same as above
The kicked player is immediately replaced by another player who is in queue for PvP, with similar ELO rating. If there's no player with similar ELO available, the one with ELO closest to the kicked player, is joined.
Just a rough bunch of ideas, but can't think to another way to fix what is left to fix in PvP.
I believe they should implement the match making algorithm based partly on gear score and partly on a sorting algorithm.
Every player should get a (hidden) score number, which I will call "PvP Score" here, and which somewhat equals their own gear score, but is also determined by the number of wins and losses they had. This means players can influence their "PvP Score" by the way they play without actually changing their gear score. Good players may be able to hold their ground against players with higher gear score, and bad players will have a chance to fight more often in lower GS fights.
Using a sorting algorithm then keeps placing players with an somewhat equal "PvP Score" against each other.
You may see matches where you are being stuck into a team with a gear score lower than your own, but then you should not complain about, but be able to gain a victory. And you may see matches where you have to fight players with higher gear scores than your own, but that would be because you are good enough to beat them. And if you see a player with "uber gear" and a superior gear score than your own then it is only because this player is actually pretty bad at PvP and has been losing far more fights than he has won.
Comments
I just find it ironic that these people who happen to have 8 hours of free time each day to play neverwinter will somehow then rationalize that they have "a lot of stuff to do" and so they cannot play out the match
Because that is not a matchmaking system.
That is saying because there is no oranges we need apples.
A premade queue is not a solution to lopsided matches. News flash not everybody who is in a premade are geared up the wazoo nor is non-premade groups all the same skill level.
It's something to consider on top of matchmaking but is point blank, no question, can't be justified in your wildest dreams, a solution to a matchmaking system.
For the love of goodness gracious please stop. It doesn't make a bit of sense.
You also overlooked that new players, or established players new alts will skew the matchmaking continually, because they too will have to pvp for their rank to stabilize, so it is entirely possible that ELO might never stabilize, thus we will continue to get lopsided matchmaking ...
As for the full premade Q/semi premade Q/solo Q, I agree that it isn't ideal matchmaking, it could even be added alongside of ELO (or ELO like matchmaking system) it would go a long way to help solo players not get stomped by premades, how is this not matchmaking??? As it stands I am pretty sure this is one of the main reasons pvp matches are so lopsided, 9 times out of 10 we roflstomp the other team, even when we are just a semi premade, why? because we are fighting people that have solo Queued, and we are on TS countering their every move .
a solution to this would be to disallow gear swapping in a match, but i think that should be a requirement anyway. at least while on the battlefield. but if they were to implement some kind of gear matching, it would have to be restricted.
gear matching would likely cause queue delays unless they had some way to dial down the requirements. let's say i have one r7 but the rest rank 5s and a lesser soulforged and a greater bilethorn. is it fair to match me with someone with a greater or perfect soulforged with all r7s? wouldn't that also kill the diversity in builds? even though tenacity has been introduced with tenacity gear, tenacity gear is not required to enter the pvp arena. therefore build diversity is still highly possible with the current system. if i have to think about my gear decisions to make sure i'm going to be able to queue is sort of ridiculous.
here is what wikipedia says about the elo rating system:
so it would seem that the basis of the system is to try to match players as close as possible but when that is not possible, it will put mismatched teams together. how strict that is depends on variable controls. early on in the implementation of the system, it's probably advantageous to dial it down to make the requirements less strict. as more matches are played, there may come a time to dial it up to be more strict.
Again no need to explain ELO. ELO doesnt care about your gear, it cares only about your overall performance (the result of gear+skill+class). If for simplicity your overall performance doesnt change, then you will end up in a margin with 50% win chance when the number of matches tend to infinity. If you further assume that people develop different degrees of skill, then gear mismatches can happen even after many matches. Some people like me dont like this scenario (i.e. they like to have a win chance dependent entirely on their skill when the number of matches tend to infinity).
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
As for weapon or armor enchants they could also create something like an enchantment score (ES), lessers would give you less points than perfects obviously, they could then add an ES bracket to the ladder system ...
I have put very little though into this, a whole team of devs should easily come up with a better system .
It doesn't matter how good your gear is if you don't put it to good use. Gear can either compensate for a lack of playskill or playskill can compensate for a lack of gear.
There is no valid argument that either type of player should be matched directly based on Gear Score as both situations will result in a person winning or losing A LOT. Gear mismatches are going to happen and should happen because gear is not in any way shape or form an accurate way to judge players.
Some players will need a higher gear score than others to be competitive and some players will be extremely competitive with lower gear score. That is the key essential point blank fact of the matter why the Elo System is used over gear scores. There are very few opinions I will ever say are "wrong" but saying that you want gear to be a driving factor is wrong because it will drive less skilled players to perpetually lose and more skilled players to perpetually win. And that just can not be justified. I am sorry but it can not be justified!
I am not arguing the fact that on paper ELO is nice, but in reality it is wonky at best, I personally never said I want gear to be a driving factor, skill trumps GS in most cases (to a certain degree), my previous post was an idea of a system that might work, because in the mean time ELO does not, and probably never will work, fair/even matchmaking with ELO is a pipe dream .
And as a general rule of thumb the population of players will always be in the middle.
While Cryptic will strive to make matches at either end as fast and enjoyable as possible the fact of the matter is there is factually less players on either end of the spectrum. As such there is a consideration to be had between fast queues and ideally balanced matches.
And that is a factual aspect of the player populations of all games. There are always less people on the top and bottom and putting people based on Gear Score will not solve that. No matter what game you play this is the way it functions as this is how populations are naturally distributed.
What can be done is tightening restrictions on the match making limitations but that will result in longer queue times.
This is something the devs have been looking at behind the scenes but it again will take.time to find a sweet spot in the queue limits and in players getting accurately rated to begin with.
Of course there is a very valid argument: Take aside various classes for a moment, then your win-loss ratio in this scenario would be be based entirely on your skill. If you lack in skill you will lose more often, that is the hard way, but fair PvP.
I dont understand why are you seriously arguing that gear should compensate lack in skill. This is exactly what we do NOT want. We do NOT want a compensation of skill by gear which ELO creates. Since it is not possible to set up our own matches, all we demand the possibility to join an alternative PvP queue in which gear doesnt play a role (it would be sufficient to disable all enchants).
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
i'm pretty sure the ability to set up custom matches will be an option in the future.
?! I don't remember this being mentioned by any of the Devs, I Hope so, that would be fantastic! Its one of the few things PvPers actually want.
The first counterargument to this question is the level 50-59 players don't have all their skills yet as compared to the level 60 players. But, according to some of the logic that is being put forth in this thread in justifying the Level 60 matchup, this should also be eventually balanced out by the Elo ranking system.
I could be wrong and would love to hear why.
All the rest of the mismatches need to remain and the players need to learn how to play better tactics.
CRAZY MIKE - 14.6k PvE CW
Backbone - 16.7k PvP HR
[SIGPIC]http://i59.tinypic.com/s3hts7.png[/SIGPIC]
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?616691-Shadowmantle-Preview-Patch-Notes-NW-14-20140224a-7&p=7366141#post7366141
Well actually he is arguing that skill compensates a lack of gear.
Other way around buddy
Sharandar boons and dailies, dread ring boons and dailies, like you said not enough skill points and feats, the gear imbalance is too much that it will take an even longer time (than it already is) to keep finding appropriate matches for you.
Too many reasons to not implement this. Too many factors to calculate, will make ELO even more horrible than it already is. They should not implement it just to justify and defend themselves against your argument.
This is why the elo system will never work in Neverwinter. There are always an influx of new pvp players + pvp players that only play rarely. They say it takes time. Just wait. Time. Maybe months. MONTHS! lol. In months there will be so much turnover in the pvp playerbase that the system can never really become stable. Time. The problem is time. Long ques = less matches played = more turnover = even longer time for the thing to become stable.
Simple solution:
League play and pugs:
Pug q's will always be random based on nothing other than no more than only individuals q'ing.
League q's would require registered premade, named, teams. A ladder. TEAM RANKS, not individuals. As long as three of the original players who were present when the team was registered are present, they can fill out the rest of the team with anyone else who accepts the invite.
Pugs will always be problematic simply because NWO is so gear centric. By gear-centric I mean things like vorpal. Crit severity should NEVER be based in an item, but rather in a class build. Gear has no negative counterbalance. Class build decisions can always come at the cost of choosing against an equally good build option.
The point of pugging in my example would be to facilitate the creation of premades. You finally find a group you are in synch with and you make a premade and then register in the league. Yes a good pug with r7's and greater enchants will not beat a good premade with rank9's and perfects, but I'll bet that r7/greater team places in the top 20-40% which is pretty darn good, especially if there are thousands of teams.
Jugger Conq GF
....
Nope. He was arguing that both ways should be present, while i was arguing - and demanding - that gear should not matter regardless in which way. On my HR for example I played very many matches, yet I am still grouped up with - and against - people with 4-5k GS more than me. Not because I am full blue/green, but because of their enchants. They make a tremendous difference.
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
http://www.igl.net/
I played spades for many years on this ladder, my team was #9 out of 30k people on that ladder. Encourage team play, facilitate premades. IT IS A GROUP GAME ANYWAYS. A GROUP GAME. Make people register teams. Rank the teams. In a perfect world pugs would be all 1v1. You throw 5 random people in a group vs 5 other random people and it is a clown show, will always be a clown show.
Jugger Conq GF
....
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
Well GS matchmaking as pointed out is a huge problem because it is easily exploited in many ways. Taking all enchants out means less incentive for people to either play the game to earn them, or straight out buy them. Neverwinter is WAAAYYY too gear oriented and that is a problem that just can't be solved, will always cause high player turnover which consequently will bugger any matchmaking system that requires the same players playing many matches over a period of time.
btw "forcing pugs to be premades" need not be such a huge issue. To kill two birds with one stone- all of the players currently in q for a pug could simply show on a players list (much like friends list), and we could invite from there. When two groups of five emerge, you have your match.
Jugger Conq GF
....
On the other hand there are people who would like to play more if these issues are resolved. With module 3 people can still use all their equipment to fight against others, while in a more 'professional' leage that equipment would be disabled. I dont think that people will stop improving their toons in that scenario. It would on the other hand make alot more fun imo.
***
And another point is that honor should be given according to the end standings... it is very stupid if you played in a match lasting 30min and get only a few honor points just because it was a close loss. This is a crazy time sink for little gain. Especially if you play very often -and assuming that your skill and gear doesnt change - you are very likely grouped into a match in with you have 50% win chance. This is independent if you lack in skill or if you shine in skill - and in the end you may have a close loss.
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
http://gyazo.com/0927d5d1490b19c8c296d22e54a5681f
us:
2 hr 14k & 16k gs
2 tr 11k & 15k gs
1 cw 15k gs
them:
2 gwf idk 1 of their stats he wouldnt answer my pms so 12-15k other is 12k
1 gf 14k
1 dc 11k
1 tr 12k
??????????????????????????????
CRAZY MIKE - 14.6k PvE CW
Backbone - 16.7k PvP HR
[SIGPIC]http://i59.tinypic.com/s3hts7.png[/SIGPIC]
Waaaaaay too many times in the passed couple of weeks I've been put into matches where the gaps in power were just way too great. We either lose by over 700 points or win by over 700 points.
the theory that a higher gear score should be an indicator of a higher ranked player is a really bad theory. i see dozens of complaints here on the forums about bad pugs and people running to the home base or single players running to the center cap... or players fighting off cap... but your limited to view your own teams gs, not to mention who knows if gear swapping happens which could affect this theory or if people are playing for the kill, not the mechanics of capping nodes. and then there's the possibility that someone has a high gs but is a casual pvper.
gs does not equal elo rank. if gear score was the indicator of a skilled player, then i'm sure the matchmaking system would have been built around it but the fact is, it isn't. and it wasn't.
in my view based on my play style, the new matchmaker system works perfectly for me. it is a far better experience today than it was before. and i can understand why people that like to set up custom matches aren't having fun with queuing premades because they were able to manipulate the queue before to match up against premade teams they wanted to play. today, they can't do that because of the leaver penalty. hopefully, PWE will get a custom match option in there shortly after module 3 drops. there's no reason why people shouldn't have a variety of options based on their play styles... all within reason, of course. too many queue options would make pvp's queue times horrible... unless they were listed as "preferences" and the these preferences could be throttled up or down depending on queue times.
Yes, this is the point: GS does not have anything to do with ELO. Only the overal performance matters.
So in the current system it is absoutely irrelevant if you play a squishy PvE CW with totally messed up feats or a Sentinel GWF with r10s: If you play many matches, you will end up in a margin where you will have 50% win chance. It doesnt matter what you play or how good you are.
And this is the point which I do not like with the current system: I want to have a win chance according to my skill only. I too made the same experience. But if you play more often you will understand what I want to say: If you play many matches, you will usually end up in matches where your chance to win is ~50%. Regardless of how good or bad you are - you will not have an influence on it. It sounds funny because you think that skill will influence it, but this is already included in the probability
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
Now, i can say 50% of the times i get balanced games, and 50% of the times i get unbalanced games. With, also, the difference that right now people keep fighting. They may lose 1000-500, but they still try to cap points, kill enemies and earn points.
Also, the blue PvP gear is sold for so much AD in the AH that people is encouraged to play and try to be the top scorer.
2 simple changes that, imho, would fix the remaining issues of PvP matchmaking:
- allow a separate queue for preformed groups to play against other random preformed groups
- allow the normal queue to be used only if not in a Group
- introduce a mid-game scramble system to auto-balance a match being too unbalanced:
at 150 points difference in score, 1st grade scramble: the system auto-scrambles the teams based on performance during the match (score). The losing team gets a little buff for a short period of time.
if the game is still not balanced and the score difference increases, at 250 points difference in score, 2nd grade scramble: the 2 best players (score) of the winning team go to the losing team, and the 2 worst players (score) of the losing team go to the winning team. Buff to the losing team is extended.
These changes could get rid of the premade vs pug issue. It's getting worst right now for a simple reason: people started to LFG for PvP too, a lot more. "LFM 15k GS DPS FOR PVP" exc... are more frequent. Must get rid of it. You go premade, you get matched against other premades. You queue alone, you go pug.
The scramble system, if working well, could get rid of the remaining unbalanced games, through a re-mixing of the teams.
After that, can introduce a "inactivity prevention system".
- Staying in spawn area for more than 2 minutes will result in the player being kicked out of the game and getting the quitter penalty.
- Staying dead and do not respawn for more than 2 minutes will result in the same as above
The kicked player is immediately replaced by another player who is in queue for PvP, with similar ELO rating. If there's no player with similar ELO available, the one with ELO closest to the kicked player, is joined.
Just a rough bunch of ideas, but can't think to another way to fix what is left to fix in PvP.
Every player should get a (hidden) score number, which I will call "PvP Score" here, and which somewhat equals their own gear score, but is also determined by the number of wins and losses they had. This means players can influence their "PvP Score" by the way they play without actually changing their gear score. Good players may be able to hold their ground against players with higher gear score, and bad players will have a chance to fight more often in lower GS fights.
Using a sorting algorithm then keeps placing players with an somewhat equal "PvP Score" against each other.
You may see matches where you are being stuck into a team with a gear score lower than your own, but then you should not complain about, but be able to gain a victory. And you may see matches where you have to fight players with higher gear scores than your own, but that would be because you are good enough to beat them. And if you see a player with "uber gear" and a superior gear score than your own then it is only because this player is actually pretty bad at PvP and has been losing far more fights than he has won.