Matchmaking - A possibility?

[neth]

dont know with who you play but i do everything to avoid noobs so im not gonna do anyting like this and i bet 95% of this forum neither is.

[Farley4Fan]

95% of this forum isn't going to be 95% of the community, there are PLENTY of people who will get this game and play it like CT.  Where they fix their own rules so they can win, n00bs, yes.  They will say they are newbs so they can get sucky people to join so they can rape them.  By n00bs I mean people who set games so they can win.  By newbs I mean people who are actually new to the game.  I'm going by Gawain's definition lol

[B1nArY_001]

Wait wait wait what?!  Goodkebab, that's a mistake putting 3 difficulty choices for match description.  It really is!  Why?  Because everyone will just say they are noobs just to get noobs to come in, then the people who join will get the shit knocked out of them.  We need some sort of ranking system.  Not numbers maybe ( seemed like no one really wanted a scoring system ) but something like Rainbow 6 Vegas or COD 4.  Like the better you do the higher medal you achieve.  Like your medal starts out as a recruit, then as you gain more and more experience for games, your medal and rank increases.  Maybe you set a maximum medal of General or Elite and a minimum of Recruit or Private.  I know this aint the army but people will get a more realistic rank of the host.

Example:  People who are just starting will look at the game description and see that there is a colonel and a general in the game, so obviously he won't join it.  Letting people choose what their rank of server is would be bad.  Noobs would join pro games who say they are noob and get destroyed.

Maybe I should start a topic about this.

Having game tags will not encourage this, people can already do this within the name and would more than likely do so regardless of a flag. It never stopped people in SCCT.

With flags
Server name "Come Play We R Noobz" flag "Easy"

Or...

Without flags
Server name "Come Play We R Noobz"

The end result is the same, if someone wants to try and lure inexperienced players into a their game they will do it just as easily either way.

When you weigh these types of things against a suggested implementation don't forget to consider the percentage of players we can expect this from. The number of players who do this is pretty small compared to the overall community and as such it shouldn't even be considered in most cases. There is always the person who tried to work the system to their advantage but fortunately, again - they are a small percentage of the community. Hardly worth complicating the system beyond a simple flag imo.

[Farley4Fan]

Well if you get the end result then what is the point?  If someone already says they are noobs then they don't need a flag. 

[B1nArY_001]

Well if you get the end result then what is the point?  If someone already says they are noobs then they don't need a flag. 

This would provide an additional and useful method for sorting the list of available games.

I for example would sort by by difficulty and then by ping within the difficulty flag if possible.

[Gawain]

it makes sense for sorting and leaves more space for more significant server names.
btw, will it be possible to see every server's ping (? is quite annoying)?

[Farley4Fan]

With the medal system you can see the medal of the players in that game, then there will be NO way to fake that you are a noob to get noobs to join.  What the flag would do is provide n00bs an extra way to fake that they are newbs.

I think it would be nice to have a medal system.  That way you could really see who is good or not and how good they SAY they are.

[B1nArY_001]

A medal system would require some sort of stat tracking and that information would need to be stored locally with heavy encryption to avoid tampering or on a remote secure server. This also requires a way of determining these stats and in this type of game that is nearly impossible to do accurately.

Look at the rank system for CT. They ranked using pretty much the optimal method and it was still less than accurate.

Here are a few things

How do you measure the level of teamwork?
(You can't)

How do you measure the level of successful teamwork?
(You can't)

How do you measure the skill with which a player maintains stealth?
(You can't)

How do you measure the effectiveness of a players patrol patterns?
(You can't)

How do you measure the effectiveness of a players mine/trap placement?
(You can't, you can only measure how many are tripped which could be on purpose)

How do you measure the effective use of Spy gadgets?
(You can't)

How can you measure the effectiveness of a distraction or lure?
(You can't)

How can you measure pursuit or evasion skills?
(You can't)

Now try and factor in each player or team's unique style of play and how well and in what manner they make use of the environment. This type of game isn't just about stealth it's about adapting to the situation and perhaps doing something that would normally be considered dumb.

Obviously we can't just track games won, or hacks, or necks/kills; those factors are to subject to fluctuation based on who you play with. We saw this with SCCT.

A human observer of a sufficient skill level could rank this through observation but you are talking about a data analysis program that approaches the complexity of a reasoning AI that also reads other variables such as response time.

If someone out there knows that this falls within the scope of a mod and knows how to create the brain of this system, by all means, make it. It should make you some good money  ;)

Edit: I'm not saying it's completely impossible but it is a rather monumental task and any system created to rank this kind of game is going to be somewhat inaccurate and still a massive amount of work and time. Wouldn't you guys rather see that time spent on improving the game play and performance?

[Farley4Fan]

So, you'd rather have a player able to lie about his skill?  What if you have some little punk who thinks he is the shit?  So he puts his little "flag" on hard.  Then you join his game and you blow him away, no challenge, he goes back and boots you.  No thanks.

Why don't you make a system based on the number of games you have played?  Like an experience medal.  The more games you play the higher your medal goes up.  If you have a low medal it means you have little experience and you are a newb.  Newcomers would join games in which the players have less experience like themselves.  You don't have to track everything, just how much you've played.

Making people judge their own experience and making them able to say what they are is a mistake.

[Overstatement]

You want us to assume players are idiots? How many sequels have been ruined because they were dumbed down? I say we make them learn for themselves. Players will quickly learn which servers to join. No one wants to be beaten badly or always win. And there is always the option of kicking people.

[goodkebab]

Wait wait wait what?!  Goodkebab, that's a mistake putting 3 difficulty choices for match description.  It really is!  Why?  Because everyone will just say they are noobs just to get noobs to come in, then the people who join will get the shit knocked out of them.  We need some sort of ranking system.  Not numbers maybe ( seemed like no one really wanted a scoring system ) but something like Rainbow 6 Vegas or COD 4.  Like the better you do the higher medal you achieve.  Like your medal starts out as a recruit, then as you gain more and more experience for games, your medal and rank increases.  Maybe you set a maximum medal of General or Elite and a minimum of Recruit or Private.  I know this aint the army but people will get a more realistic rank of the host.

Example:  People who are just starting will look at the game description and see that there is a colonel and a general in the game, so obviously he won't join it.  Letting people choose what their rank of server is would be bad.  Noobs would join pro games who say they are noob and get destroyed.

Maybe I should start a topic about this.

You are wrong Papa,  just look at lobby to see my point.   You will see "no noob" servers,  and "noob only" servers.  Pros easily get bored playing against noobs so I dont expect it to be common for them to want to play against noobs.   But any good player will spend time away from the game for weeks or months,  and wish to come back.  They wont be good anymore,  but will still need the freedom to choose.

If you really dont care who joins your server,  then you would of course not give yourself a rank.  Ranking does not prevent you from joining any server that you wish.  And true, it does not prevent pros  pretending to be noobs.....but we cannot prevent that regardless.

[neth]

No to medals, stats, ranks, achievements etc.

[Farley4Fan]

Not achievements.  Wtf?  Do you think I want like a 360 game or something?  No.  I want people to see how much others have been playing.  Maybe a frequency medal.  Like if someone played a lot then stops playing their medal would start to decrease.

You can prevent it.  Frequency medal, experience gauge, whatever you want to call it.  It's hardly a ranking or a stat.

[Cyntrox]

But two players who have played the exact same amount of time at the same frequency need not be anywhere near each other in skill.

[Farley4Fan]

But traditionally if you both play the same amount of time you both are going to basically have the same amount of knowledge about the game.  Someone who has a low experience level does not while someone who has a high experience medal does. 


Don't think I am suggesting something where you unlock stuff as you rank up, no.  I am suggesting something that shows how much you play. 

Just so noobs out there don't get confused and join a random game and get blow away.  There is a LONG learning curve to this game and it will be longer if newcomers join a game, get raped, and leave halfway.  And since there will be a good tutorial for this game you won't really want newbs to join veterans for tips because they supposedly won't have to.