declined Possible GS-Based Matchmaking Solution

[LambSauce 1,894]

I had a think about how to make MM battles more balanced, and this is just a general idea that I think could work:

- Matchmaking is based on Gear Score;

- Equipment switching during the battle is still allowed, however if your GS after the equipment change has increased, there is a proportional damage and armour penalty, e.g. for every 1000 extra GS your damage and armour are reduced by 10% (not sure about the optimal values for this, 10% is just a rough idea);

- Equally, if your GS after the equipment change has decreased, then there is a proportional damage and armour boost, e.g. for every 1000 GS lost your damage and armour are boosted by 10% (again, just a rough value).

If we could find the optimal values for the damage/armour boosts and penalties, I believe this solution could be viable as a way to help out lower GS players, and simultaneously lower the stats of higher GS players.

Although this obviously wouldn’t fix the issues with OP status effect augments, drones and overdrives, I think it could help make MM battles somewhat more balanced.

 

[Spy 14,899]

Declined

The Gear Score is meant to be a numerical value that indicates the total "strength" of a tank inside the game. Making tanks weaker by giving them damage/armour penalties for getting a higher GS than before is exactly the opposite of that GS is meant to represent.

[LambSauce 1,894]

4 minutes ago, Spy said:

Declined

The Gear Score is meant to be a numerical value that indicates the total "strength" of a tank inside the game. Making tanks weaker by giving them damage/armour penalties for getting having higher GS than before is exactly the opposite of that GS is meant to represent.

Fair point, although in this situation there could be a small red box (for example) next to the GS value that says "-10%" or whatever the percentage is, so that people will know how the GS value is affected.

[Spy 14,899]

Just now, LambSauce said:

Fair point, although in this situation there could be a small red box (for example) next to the GS value that says "-10%" so that people will know how the GS value is affected.

It will be very confusing, especially for new players.

[georgiaboy_61 46]

Well I'm confused with why make MM maps available to create.  The plans were to make MM create and be apart of the battles that counted for missions.  They never were linked to the computer generated battles.   Anyway the game is really terrible with MM battles.

[LambSauce 1,894]

11 minutes ago, Spy said:

It will be very confusing, especially for new players.

If the GS value itself changed it wouldn't be confusing. It's just a matter of how to present it in the UI.

But you're declining just because it would look confusing to new players, or because it's a bad concept, or both?

[georgiaboy_61 46]

The way to balance the game play is to disable augments, upgrades and overdrives in MM battles.  Simple the things developers add that ruins the game.

[Spy 14,899]

35 minutes ago, LambSauce said:

If the GS value itself changed it wouldn't be confusing. It's just a matter of how to present it in the UI.

But you're declining just because it would look confusing to new players, or because it's a bad concept, or both?

Both.

20 minutes ago, georgiaboy_61 said:

The way to balance the game play is to disable augments, upgrades and overdrives in MM battles.  Simple the things developers add that ruins the game.

The developers cannot just disable those in the current state of Tanki, augments provide the majority of the content nowadays.

[wolverine848 13,097]

On 2/2/2022 at 6:05 AM, LambSauce said:

I had a think about how to make MM battles more balanced, and this is just a general idea that I think could work:

- Matchmaking is based on Gear Score;

- Equipment switching during the battle is still allowed, however if your GS after the equipment change has increased, there is a proportional damage and armour penalty, e.g. for every 1000 extra GS your damage and armour are reduced by 10% (not sure about the optimal values for this, 10% is just a rough idea);

- Equally, if your GS after the equipment change has decreased, then there is a proportional damage and armour boost, e.g. for every 1000 GS lost your damage and armour are boosted by 10% (again, just a rough value).

If we could find the optimal values for the damage/armour boosts and penalties, I believe this solution could be viable as a way to help out lower GS players, and simultaneously lower the stats of higher GS players.

Although this obviously wouldn’t fix the issues with OP status effect augments, drones and overdrives, I think it could help make MM battles somewhat more balanced.

 

Number one criteria for MM is rank, not GS.  GS currently comes into effect only in terms of balancing between teams.  Players with 3900 GS are not facing enemies with 9000 because of GS splits.  It's the rank splits.

Do you honestly think that players would spend money in the low-to-mid ranks if they were forced to play against players that are more likely higher-ranked than they are because the buyers GS happens to be inflated?  Why do you think they spend the $$?

The REAL solution is to tighten the rank-spreads of MM.  They get too wide and Majors are playing Legends because of that. The equipment would be a lot more balanced because of the rank-limits on the equipment. Buyers GS will be limited by their rank.

 

And I definitely don't want to help prop up players who squandered their resources.  If a Legend never learned how to manage their crystals and has a GS=4900, that's too bad. They may have a moderate GS across the board, but have ALL the modules, many turrets and hulls they can switch to that could give them an advantage but NOT get them penalized via your in-battle nerf.

[LambSauce 1,894]

7 minutes ago, wolverine848 said:

Number one criteria for MM is rank, not GS.  GS currently comes into effect only in terms of balancing between teams.  Players with 3900 GS are not facing enemies with 9000 because of GS splits.  It's the rank splits.

Do you honestly think that players would spend money in the low-to-mid ranks if they were forced to play against players that are more likely higher-ranked than they are because the buyers GS happens to be inflated?  Why do you think they spend the $$?

The REAL solution is to tighten the rank-spreads of MM.  They get too wide and Majors are playing Legends because of that. The equipment would be a lot more balanced because of the rank-limits on the equipment. Buyers GS will be limited by their rank.

 

And I definitely don't want to help prop up players who squandered their resources.  If a Legend never learned how to manage their crystals and has a GS=4900, that's too bad. They may have a moderate GS across the board, but have ALL the modules, many turrets and hulls they can switch to that could give them an advantage but NOT get them penalized via your in-battle nerf.

I understand that this is more of a MOBA-style solution, where everyone is exactly equal in stats so it probably won't work in an MMO because of the devs' profit margins.

It was an assumption of mine that similar GS scores naturally leads to similar ranks playing with/against each other, with exceptions of course, so for that reason this may be better for a ranked matchmaking mode rather than the 'casual' MM that we have now.

With regards to tightening rank-spreads, I think there simply aren't enough players to achieve that without extremely long battle search times.

[Debt-Collector 1,617]

25 minutes ago, wolverine848 said:

Number one criteria for MM is rank, not GS.  GS currently comes into effect only in terms of balancing between teams.  Players with 3900 GS are not facing enemies with 9000 because of GS splits.  It's the rank splits.

Do you honestly think that players would spend money in the low-to-mid ranks if they were forced to play against players that are more likely higher-ranked than they are because the buyers GS happens to be inflated?  Why do you think they spend the $$?

The REAL solution is to tighten the rank-spreads of MM.  They get too wide and Majors are playing Legends because of that. The equipment would be a lot more balanced because of the rank-limits on the equipment. Buyers GS will be limited by their rank.

 

And I definitely don't want to help prop up players who squandered their resources.  If a Legend never learned how to manage their crystals and has a GS=4900, that's too bad. They may have a moderate GS across the board, but have ALL the modules, many turrets and hulls they can switch to that could give them an advantage but NOT get them penalized via your in-battle nerf.

I do recall suggesting something like this before in the I&S section before it got merged to another topic. However, many people didn't like the fact that it may cause longer MM times. However, I thought it was a great suggestion. Would have worked better today if more players didn't leave out of raging. I don't blame them though. 

[wolverine848 13,097]

6 minutes ago, LambSauce said:

I understand that this is more of a MOBA-style solution, where everyone is exactly equal in stats so it probably won't work in an MMO because of the devs' profit margins.

It was an assumption of mine that similar GS scores naturally leads to similar ranks playing with/against each other, with exceptions of course, so for that reason this may be better for a ranked matchmaking mode rather than the 'casual' MM that we have now.

With regards to tightening rank-spreads, I think there simply aren't enough players to achieve that without extremely long battle search times.

Speaking of balancing... just left 2 battles because the teams were not even remotely close.  TO is lying to us when they say groups do not play non-groups.  In this case... it's Clans vs non-groups.  That's just swell.   

[LambSauce 1,894]

6 minutes ago, wolverine848 said:

TO is lying to us when they say groups do not play non-groups.  In this case... it's Clans vs non-groups.

I wasn't even aware they had said that. I see groups of esports players steamrolling the enemy team all the time.

[wolverine848 13,097]

2 minutes ago, LambSauce said:

I wasn't even aware they had said that. I see groups of esports players steamrolling the enemy team all the time.

Just left a battle where a Legend on my Team had a GS of.... 3290.

It's just getting stupid.  Once I finish the missions to get the 300 TKs I'm gonna take a break.  The game is just ... ridiculous.

[Debt-Collector 1,617]

4 minutes ago, wolverine848 said:

Just left a battle where a Legend on my Team had a GS of.... 3290.

It's just getting stupid.  Once I finish the missions to get the 300 TKs I'm gonna take a break.  The game is just ... ridiculous.

At this point the amount of legends with low gs is just ruining the experience by multing. I get frustrated with amount of legends with gs scores below 5k multing in my team especially when I get the mission get top 3 in winning team. Thats why as soon as I see gs lower than 6k I leave that battle. There should be no reason a legend should be less than 6k gs even with the gs update making drones have more gs value. 

[wolverine848 13,097]

2 minutes ago, MysticBlood said:

At this point the amount of legends with low gs is just ruining the experience by multing. I get frustrated with amount of legends with gs scores below 5k multing in my team especially when I get the mission get top 3 in winning team. Thats why as soon as I see gs lower than 6k I leave that battle. There should be no reason a legend should be less than 6k gs even with the gs update making drones have more gs value. 

Berlin... 10 tanks vs 15...   3 minutes into the battle.  Easy decision to leave.  I probably leave more battles than I complete.  It NEVER used to be that way.

[LambSauce 1,894]

7 minutes ago, wolverine848 said:

Berlin... 10 tanks vs 15...   3 minutes into the battle.  Easy decision to leave.  I probably leave more battles than I complete.  It NEVER used to be that way.

Have you tried ProTanki? I would but it seems to be supported on Windows only.

It seems to be gaining quite a chunk of the veteran TO playerbase. 

Just to give you an example --- seems to be getting full, balanced battles for most ranks, from what I have seen.

[georgiaboy_61 46]

5 hours ago, Spy said:

Both.

The developers cannot just disable those in the current state of Tanki, augments provide the majority of the content nowadays.

That's not true because they can be disabled in battles that players create.  TO needs a server or servers set up for games without augments.  It's like this a wasp hull that is as difficult to destroy as a titan is very imbalanced.  

[Spy 14,899]

4 hours ago, georgiaboy_61 said:

That's not true because they can be disabled in battles that players create.  TO needs a server or servers set up for games without augments.  It's like this a wasp hull that is as difficult to destroy as a titan is very imbalanced.  

Technically they can disabled augments, but will they benefit anything from doing so? The answer is no.

[sensei_tanker 3,098]