Scenario Matchmaking Rework Megathread

[trh382]

Further thought based on discussion throughout thread:

When people talk about dodging / not wanting to play I think its important to distinguish 4 situations:

1. There is a close or at least somewhat balanced game of pugs v pugs and someone gets frustrated and refused to continue playing even though the game is winnable or at least playable from their side. When they stop it becomes no longer playable. This is toxic and should be frowned upon and disincentivized where possible.

2. There is a somewhat balanced game of premades v premades. The weaker premade loses one fight and hides, ruining the game for everyone. This is toxic and should be frowned upon and disincentivized where possible.

3. There is a fundamentally unbalanced game of premades or semi org v pugs or semi org. One side cannot get any kills at all and stops leaving the starting area. This is reasonable and, realistically, everyone I know who plays in sweaty premade groups has a threshold beyond which they wont play anymore because the match is unplayable.

4. There is a fundamentally imbalanced composition match up - eg 11 random DPS and one 2H tank vs 2 teams of 2-2-2. Even a scrimmage between alphago piloted DPS vs braindead goat piloted 2-2-2 would be resolved in favour of the 2-2-2. No one wants to play on the 11 random DPS side and this is reasonable.

Ideally the new queue system just doesnt pop #4 and shows the queue numbers and forces everyone to wait for at least 1 healer and 1 tank on each side of 12 (or something similar). Surrender option is a good safety valve.

Number 3 is solved by surrender imo - cases of 3 could be reduced more by higher pop and more matchmaking, but the higher pop must come first.

Number 2 is a tricky one. I think that it is a problem throughout the community and the solution is better sportsmanship from losing and winning teams in all formats. Thats a tough one though and its hard to see what design choices can be made to address it since the surrender function is important to get people out of situation 3 and 4.

Number 1 should be addressed with GM action. It is not very frequent, but the behaviour is extremely bad and needs to be punished. You cannot be allowed to ragethrow games in a team competitive environment.

I think if the SC rework made solid headway on Case 4 by improving the queueing system and making the queue status visible to players through the in game interface (similar to solo ranked) then the playerbase and GMs would be in a better position to make headway on 1, 2, and 3. It would also be easier to tell people - queue discordant or queue what is popping and keep looking for people to group with and build connections to form teams. It would also be less generally acceptable to dodge/afk because there might be fewer asymmetrical matches that normalized dodging behaviour.

[Blorke]

Everything SCs need is a system that matches you against groups when you already queue as a grp. No sweat contest, no discord, no class bias. Just some good ol' fashioned quick rounds competing against others. That's what SCs were supposed to be back in live and that's what they should be now. If you want to get organized on a bigger scale -> RVR. Premades runnin' 24/7 in SCs are a tiny fraction of this community and for too long they abused that broken system for their easy crest farming against PUGs.

[mekal]

Further thought based on discussion throughout thread:

When people talk about dodging / not wanting to play I think its important to distinguish 4 situations:

1. There is a close or at least somewhat balanced game of pugs v pugs and someone gets frustrated and refused to continue playing even though the game is winnable or at least playable from their side. When they stop it becomes no longer playable. This is toxic and should be frowned upon and disincentivized where possible.

2. There is a somewhat balanced game of premades v premades. The weaker premade loses one fight and hides, ruining the game for everyone. This is toxic and should be frowned upon and disincentivized where possible.

3. There is a fundamentally unbalanced game of premades or semi org v pugs or semi org. One side cannot get any kills at all and stops leaving the starting area. This is reasonable and, realistically, everyone I know who plays in sweaty premade groups has a threshold beyond which they wont play anymore because the match is unplayable.

4. There is a fundamentally imbalanced composition match up - eg 11 random DPS and one 2H tank vs 2 teams of 2-2-2. Even a scrimmage between alphago piloted DPS vs braindead goat piloted 2-2-2 would be resolved in favour of the 2-2-2. No one wants to play on the 11 random DPS side and this is reasonable.

Ideally the new queue system just doesnt pop #4 and shows the queue numbers and forces everyone to wait for at least 1 healer and 1 tank on each side of 12 (or something similar). Surrender option is a good safety valve.

Number 3 is solved by surrender imo - cases of 3 could be reduced more by higher pop and more matchmaking, but the higher pop must come first.

Number 2 is a tricky one. I think that it is a problem throughout the community and the solution is better sportsmanship from losing and winning teams in all formats. Thats a tough one though and its hard to see what design choices can be made to address it since the surrender function is important to get people out of situation 3 and 4.

Number 1 should be addressed with GM action. It is not very frequent, but the behaviour is extremely bad and needs to be punished. You cannot be allowed to ragethrow games in a team competitive environment.

I think if the SC rework made solid headway on Case 4 by improving the queueing system and making the queue status visible to players through the in game interface (similar to solo ranked) then the playerbase and GMs would be in a better position to make headway on 1, 2, and 3. It would also be easier to tell people - queue discordant or queue what is popping and keep looking for people to group with and build connections to form teams. It would also be less generally acceptable to dodge/afk because there might be fewer asymmetrical matches that normalized dodging behaviour.

4. was tried led to ridiculous que times due to low population

3. chain surrender should be punished play discordant if you dont like premades

2. player issue can not be solved with such low population

1. again low population issue

it all boils down to do you want 5 hour que times trying to balance scenarios with optimal teams or would you like to actually play the game with suboptimal and whatever the game gives you

with 100-1k people playing this server you dont really have much room to work with

[Rapzel]

I propose we remove discordant skirmish, seems to only add toxicity and complaints in general chat. Not enough of them pop, to be profitable for solo players to play.

[trh382]

4. was tried led to ridiculous que times due to low population

3. chain surrender should be punished play discordant if you dont like premades

2. player issue can not be solved with such low population

1. again low population issue

it all boils down to do you want 5 hour que times trying to balance scenarios with optimal teams or would you like to actually play the game with suboptimal and whatever the game gives you

with 100-1k people playing this server you dont really have much room to work with

Hey, I think you misunderstood my post a bit. 1-4 are cases where there is a problem - not my proposed solution.

I think its helpful to distinguish between degrees of fixes. For the reason you suggested - low pop - there are limits to how fluid and balanced the sc queue will be.

However, in a low pop situation there are still better and worse situations we could be in. The point is - can you have fast queue times and slightly better match ups? More pops later into the night - maybe an extra 2 hours of active SCs? Faster queue times while maintaining current level of match up quality.

These are the questions you should be asking - not "can things be perfect on low pop server? No - okay we can do nothing. Its best to think in terms of incremental gains or marginal improvements.

[Astropunk]

I know the server really tried to make this a 6v6 game. But at this point, it is clear that the 6 mans don't want that. During NA there's a guild 6 man that will swap to the winning side to 6 man against PUGs who are in an underpopulated realm that's losing. They make scenarios during NA toxic every single night.

So whatever is done here needs to be able to stop them from doing that. The vast majority of the people in scenarios are against 6 mans. We don't need to have an incredibly long discussion of 100 different solutions to try and make it so PUGs can fight 6 mans or PUGs will form 6 mans. The data is there that it won't work. Just like the data is there that 6 mans don't want a sweaty fight.

Allow only for a 2 person queue at max. Make it so guild duos won't be paired in the same scenario. Show class archetype in the queue so people know what is needed. 6 Mans can queue ranked, there's already a setting for them.

That's it. Then test it. Actually put that change out on the server and I assure you that scenarios will be far more popular.

[Frankie]

I propose we remove discordant skirmish, seems to only add toxicity and complaints in general chat. Not enough of them pop, to be profitable for solo players to play.

To tell the truth, I only found out about its real purpose on the forum. The description in game isn't 99% clear like "queue here for pugging scenarios". It's a good place to start something with scenarios, should be refined, not thrown out.

[trh382]

That's it. Then test it. Actually put that change out on the server and I assure you that scenarios will be far more popular.

I think I have some disagreements with your specific suggestions.

Nonetheless - just put out changes is good advice imo.

Design a new system - dont agonize over it. Save the code for the old one. Put out the new system for a 1 week live trial. Announce the trial, look at results and activity, gather feedback. Then either revert, keep new, or adjust new system as needed. Iteration with clear trial periods and quick turnaround for low time requirement tweaks is going to give you better results than waiting a year to try and develop the perfect all encompassing solution.

[mekal]

4. was tried led to ridiculous que times due to low population

3. chain surrender should be punished play discordant if you dont like premades

2. player issue can not be solved with such low population

1. again low population issue

it all boils down to do you want 5 hour que times trying to balance scenarios with optimal teams or would you like to actually play the game with suboptimal and whatever the game gives you

with 100-1k people playing this server you dont really have much room to work with

Hey, I think you misunderstood my post a bit. 1-4 are cases where there is a problem - not my proposed solution.

I think its helpful to distinguish between degrees of fixes. For the reason you suggested - low pop - there are limits to how fluid and balanced the sc queue will be.

However, in a low pop situation there are still better and worse situations we could be in. The point is - can you have fast queue times and slightly better match ups? More pops later into the night - maybe an extra 2 hours of active SCs? Faster queue times while maintaining current level of match up quality.

These are the questions you should be asking - not "can things be perfect on low pop server? No - okay we can do nothing. Its best to think in terms of incremental gains or marginal improvements.

give suggestions then...

you are just typing for the sake of typing i have given mine and honestly i cant see a better solution make discordant cross faction so people can get a pop since as it stands people dont que for it but forum warriors think its still somehow biased against them

I know the server really tried to make this a 6v6 game. But at this point, it is clear that the 6 mans don't want that. During NA there's a guild 6 man that will swap to the winning side to 6 man against PUGs who are in an underpopulated realm that's losing. They make scenarios during NA toxic every single night.

So whatever is done here needs to be able to stop them from doing that. The vast majority of the people in scenarios are against 6 mans. We don't need to have an incredibly long discussion of 100 different solutions to try and make it so PUGs can fight 6 mans or PUGs will form 6 mans. The data is there that it won't work. Just like the data is there that 6 mans don't want a sweaty fight.

Allow only for a 2 person queue at max. Make it so guild duos won't be paired in the same scenario. Show class archetype in the queue so people know what is needed. 6 Mans can queue ranked, there's already a setting for them.

That's it. Then test it. Actually put that change out on the server and I assure you that scenarios will be far more popular.

everything you want is already in game...

[Dackjanielz]

Like i said b4.....merge skirmish into normal SC

Then change SC to be Solo / Duo only.

Test that for a while n see what happens - premades can go into ranked.