Friday, April 13, 2012

Is SPARTA random fair!? Are you kidding me!?

[:1]

So, I noticed that the higher level I am, more XP I will win when I win in a PVP. This makes sense!

At Sparta it is used a random search, and i understand that is impossible or very difficult to find someone at the exactly same level you are each time you want to play. Even if two players have the same level they may have different technologies, but that is ok, diversity makes the game fun and challenging.

I've played at least 30 PVP games and, without exagerating, most of them I played against someone who was highly above my level or the opposite. Ten minutes ago I played, again, against a lvl 35. I'm lvl 15 and a premium player. He took 3 minutes to win the game. I could be the best player in the universe and I would still lose. Is it fair for anyone!? Well, the guy didn't mind because he won. But I do, even when I'm in his position. This is not fair! It goes beyond fair, it's stupid. Extremely stupid and annoying. So annoying!...

If I'm lvl 15 they should choose someone between, maybe, level 13 and 17 or 18. And never someone higher than lvl 20 because they can reach Age IV, and no one under 10 because they can't even reach Age II.How can this be possible? Are they kidding me?

Another example (I will use random values). I'm lvl 10 and I win 10000 xp if I win. And the other guy is lvl 30 and wins 30000 xp if he wins. If we play against each other, is it fair to only win 10000 xp when I won against someone with much higher technology!? Is it fair to him to win the total 30000 xp against someone so weak? It's just stupid.

When playing against someone I have to choices: random guy at sparta or with a friend in a party. Why can't I play with my nephew in the same team against some random guys?

This was acceptable in the beta version, not in the final one.

I'm very dissapointed.

Excuse me my french, this is my fourth language.

|||They have COMPLETELY lied to us about the current matchmaking state. It is complete and utter rubbish. It does NOT match you using trueskill, as trueskill is not even implemented. The ranking boards are based 100% on +wins, NOTHING else.

The amount of times I have searched at the exact time as my friend (we are both level 40) and ended up playing a level 10 player (with him also being matched up with a level 10 player) is ridiculous.|||

Hey, calm down. If he really beat you in 3 minutes or so, it is YOUR fault.

I've played some PvP. The first time I did it, I was level 6. I was matched against a level 15. I had 3 military units: spearman, hypaspist, toxotes, and I barely had any gear, while he had all he needed. However, I managed to beat him in 5 minutes or so, because I had a better economy than him in the early game (i believe he was collecting gold/stone in age 1), and managed to pull off a nice rush. I knew that, in order for me to win, I had to rush, because in the long term he would have crushed me.

My line is that, against a higher level opponent, try to be the first to attack. 3 days ago I was level 18. and was matched against a 27. Again, I beat him because I fast age 3 and killed his toxotai that were killing my villies with some peltasts.

It is not impossible to win against a higher level player. Gears is important, yes, but if you are really better than him, you will win eventually :)

|||

I agree that skill > level, but I really hope that they do make some changes to the matchmaking system. I had similar experiences when doing matchmaking in Warhammer DOW2, being matched against players much higher level than myself. Of course, it's a slightly bigger issue in AoEO because you unlock unit types and better gear as you level.


I wonder if we could get some official MS/GPG/Robot statement on the PvP matchmaking system? Has there been a statement given?

|||I think you should get a smaller amount of xp etc for a loss.Thatmeans that in situations like this the other play doesn't get nothing out of it.|||We are, in fact, using Trueskill.
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if thats true, then there are 2 possibilities:

1. trueskill sucks
2. it is another issue, that it isnt working correctly

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They have COMPLETELY lied to us about the current matchmaking state. It is complete and utter rubbish. It does NOT match you using trueskill, as trueskill is not even implemented. The ranking boards are based 100% on +wins, NOTHING else.

You are incorrect. As has been stated on multiple occasions, the order is based on TrueSkill ranking. The wins and losses are just informative.

The amount of times I have searched at the exact time as my friend (we are both level 40) and ended up playing a level 10 player (with him also being matched up with a level 10 player) is ridiculous.

... which weirdly enough is showing you're statement above is incorrect, unless you and your friend have identical TrueSkill rankings. While the matching looks at level (obviously not strongly enough, but that will be addressed down the road a bit), your ratings are what's keeping you from being matched.

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i think there should be a lvl limit
for instance: 6-10
11-19
20-30
30-40

if no matches are found in current category, it's moved into the next one or lower one. if still no matches are found, the search gives the player a heads up, so he can cancel if he wishes not to face a player 30 lvls higher or lower

ps: i've put lvl30 in 2 categories, since they can compete with both. another possible addition, is to make lvl40 a seperate categorie

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if no matches are found in current category, it's moved into the next one or lower one. if still no matches are found, the search gives the player a heads up, so he can cancel if he wishes not to face a player 30 lvls higher or lower

That is one possible solution we've discussed. We did something similar for Supreme Commander 2, where players could control searching above and below their current rank.

|||then why dont do it here? it could be so much better, and pvp friendly. also plz give us the ability to chat while searching. waiting is really bad when u cant even talk to people, or ask for (un)ranked pvp while searching|||

then why dont do it here? it could be so much better, and pvp friendly

Whatever changes we make will just take time. It took us a few months to implement the Supreme Commander 2 system, and a few weeks after to tweak it to get it right via patching.

The reason chat is blocked during searching--which we all agree is not good--is because chat lets you do a number of things that can screw up matching, like visiting other player cities. Coming up with a better solution for match waiting is also on our radar.

|||It's great to see that you're working on improving the pvp. The current system could definitely be a lot better,hopefully by the time most people are done with the quests and start pvpingmorethe changes will have been implemented.I'm not sure how trueskill works but maybe it takes a few games played for the system to get a proper skill rating for you. For the moment if I get matched up with someone 10+ levels higher than me I would just quit the match, I don't think records count for matches under 4 minutes.|||cant you do it in the way that aoe3 searched? it searched on the background, and you could still do everything while waiting. i can see that changing cities during search will be a problem, but surely, there must be a way to block city changes (perhaps only allow chat-related commands ( changing chat channel, whispering; and block all the others)|||

I'm not sure how trueskill works but maybe it takes a few games played for the system to get a proper skill rating for you.

That is exactly how it works. It gets a "confidence" in your skill over time, and should improve your matches. The challenge for us is that it has no concept of how level or gear can impact skill.

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