1 vs 1 Ladder

[Ze_PilOt]

The matchmaker is now on the TOP LEFT side.

As in our cultures we read from left to right and top to bottom, it's probably the first thing you will see by going on the find games tabs.

Probably won't change anything as I doubt it's the issue with the lack of competitive spirit :-/

[rootbeer23]

I don't think that's a good idea. You won't learn how to play if all the numbers are wrong.

The best way to get more good players is to bring in noobs and let them learn and become good.

To have an advantage, it is enough to have a single number be different, i.e. income on mass extractors.
But ok that distorts the economy needlessly. How about buy 3, get 1 for free, i.e. virtual mass extractors would be given as
help, just as if you had an extra mass spot in your base. Or even better, you have to construct that virtual mass extractor or
if possible a mass spot would be added to the map.

You won't even know what kind of game you are playing as the rule can change on every game. That's a terrible idea.

The handicap would have to be visible to anyone from the start of the game.


Its not that an unequal game should be suddenly regarded as a good thing. the matchmaker would only set this up as a fallback if no other games are available. Possibly only after confirmation by the selected players.

[Prince__]

The matchmaker is now on the TOP LEFT side.

As in our cultures we read from left to right and top to bottom, it's probably the first thing you will see by going on the find games tabs.

Probably won't change anything as I doubt it's the issue with the lack of competitive spirit :-/

Thanks for doing it!

[Ghoti]

Its not that an unequal game should be suddenly regarded as a good thing. the matchmaker would only set this up as a fallback if no other games are available. Possibly only after confirmation by the selected players.

Yah, don't mess with eco. unit HEALTH could be fiddled with a little. However I'm against that as well.

I think the best thing to do is for the top ranked players to start playing thermo, then when they start to suck, go back into automatch.

[Softly]

If noobs want to get better, teaching them that their units are automatically superior isn't the way to do it. Lets not mess with the game when the problem is a lack of proper help for those starting out, and a lack of patience from some noobs when at first they don't succeed.

[Cerberus]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Concur.

[welder]

As I recall in GPG Net, in ranked you got a choice of thumbs up for one map, and thumbs down for another.

What about implementing something like that, where each player gets to indicate their map preference when searching for a game, and if a lower ranked player gets matched against someone better the game setup would defer to the weaker player's map preference?

[Ze_PilOt]

That's overly complicated. We need more players first.

[Ze_PilOt]

To be honest, I could make the matchmaker in big red flashing letter with sounds when you mouse-over it, I don't think it will change the amount of players on it.

IE. prince is complaining, but he doesn't play on it

[AdmiralZeech]

I've been thinking about competitive ladders and matchmaking systems for a while now.

Whilst Trueskill and other such systems offer good mathematical accuracy for matching people up against others and comparing skill levels, they're not very good motivators to play competitively. Often (whether by mistake or not) they're DEmotivators to play, since people become afraid of losing points and rank.

I made this point in the fighting game community, where online play is considered a joke anyways due to lag. "If noone cares about online "skill", then why bother having your ladder be skill based? Just have an incrementing point system - a system that rewards people who play more matches. Because you want people to play more matches."

Of course, this isnt quite true in FAF, since online play is standard here. But having some sort of system that rewards being active in random ranked could be useful.

What's a good system? I have no idea. This is the tricky intersection of mathematics and psychology. As a naive first suggestion, some sort of simple ladder/league/thing where:

- Each season lasts for a fixed period of time. (A month, for example.)
- Ladder points reset after each season.
- If you win a match, you gain 10 points.
- If you lose a match, you lose 2 points.
- Standard matchmaking still applies? (ie. you still fight people assigned to you by the matchmaker.)
- There are varying levels of rewards for the top 50%, 20%, 10%, #1 players at the end of each season, etc.
- Optionally, there might be a cap or diminishing rewards in the amount of points you can gain per day.

It sounds dumb and wont work, right? But that's a bit like saying the Wii would never sell. Sometimes people's psychology doesnt work the way we rational types wish

Of course, in FAF we don't really have anything to reward people with. There's no ingame cosmetic stuff we can give, exclusive chat avatars, achievements, titles, or anything. (And yes, I think they're kinda silly myself, but there's no question that they seem to be a powerful motivator for some people.)

And yes, the system can be gamed - whoever has time to play the most matches, will have a dominating advantage in the ladder. (the cap would reduce this a little.) But that's the most important feature - we want the system to incentivise playing lots of matches, because we want people to be more active.

Of course, there's a competing view that, "I'd rather play one good match than 100 mismatched ones." But those people make friends and then play player matches - random ranked is usually a "friend discovery" system for them. Putting those people aside, it can be good to create a space where people who value variety and activity can play lots of games and feel like they're gaining something. (even if it's worthless points.)

Don't underestimate the addictive power of watching numbers go up


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(I think the remaining playerbase is probably too set in their ways to be influenced by such a system. But if the original plan was, "Do FAF release and then start advertising widely on reddit/social media/gaming sites/etc", then something like this would be useful to motivate random new players to play more.)