Statement Regarding Plans For MP Vol.3

[Crypex]

I think there are solid arguments to both sides of the debate, to be honest.

Most of Warband's equipment choice was an illusion, but it was something that was in the hands of players, allowing them to make their own decisions. Admittedly, I was always a big fan of just running around with throwing weapons and forgoing armour and a proper melee weapon to do that, and it was a lot of fun in a casual setting. In higher-level play though, most pieces of equipment were ignored, or at least that is my understanding of it.

On the other hand, the class system simply removes most of these non-choices and allows you to just jump in and play on a more level playing field. But at the same time, it does take away some of the fun of mixing and matching gear to suit your own playstyle.

I'm just thinking out loud here, but is it possible that a lot of this frustration actually stems from the lack of visual customisation? Like, being unable to show off your silly character face, or running around shirtless as a statement of your melee prowess, or just to pick what you think looks cool?

But then the issue is with the options given to the players and not the system itself. If you were to incorporate the same system and make everything balanced out then the player is able to create more strategies and meta from a simple formula. Instead, if you want to stick with the class system people will constantly want new class systems for new content. Also incorporating a class system is difficult to balance because there are so many variables to consider.

Also, consider the fact that some factions are going to be weaker when facing other factions saying for example battania not being able to field maces for their higher tier infantry. Now you can make the options 4 but that can get out of hand or you can just give players the ability to choose what they want. Another example is empire fielding very skinny shields and short swords. Both those factions have big problems and you can say that maybe we can keep balancing but at the end of the day, you have removed a possible playstyle option for players that enjoy this specific playstyle, instead if you give everyone very close options the players will be able to perfect their playstyles given that the actual weapons are balanced and are all feasible.

Edit: If players were to "switch weapons" this might be feasible in high-level play but truth be told probably will not happen in a pub match. Instead of forcing players to play the way you want, do not make a path of least resistance and instead just make all the paths/playstyles possible. It will also be a lot easier to balance.

 

[Footbeard]

The dev responses in this thread have been great, thanks for your communication. I'm really excited for the combat changes that 1.5.0 will bring but understand that fixing the crashing and increased stuttering in 1.4.3 may take some time. Stoked that you're dedicating the resources for an OCE duel server; we'll make sure it's populated for testing.

The discussion around the class/loadout system is interesting but the point I most strongly agree with is regarding choosing weapon slots for two reasons. Firstly, is so that I don't accidentally pull out the wrong weapon for the context. This straight up feels bad because the class systems don't have any consistency with order of gear. Secondly, I think there should be a command in Captain Mode/SP that is "USE PRIMARY/SECONDARY/TERTIARY" arms to override AI weapon choosing. If we know what weapons are in what slots then this command would be incredibly useful and allow units to function more cohesively.

Will MP and SP end up feeling very different due to these changes? I'm averse to the idea of having the game (especially the combat) feel different depending on whether I want to play with people or not. Is the team open to the idea of implementing these changes in SP?

This is a stellar thread, super excited for what's to come

 

[Footbeard]

Oh I also want to be able to take off my shoes and maybe bring a dagger into MP

 

[Younes]

Oh I also want to be able to take off my shoes and maybe bring a dagger into MP

UR ASKING TOO MUCH!!

 

[AVRC]

Update: We will be turning on skill based match making today.
It will not be matching too strict for now to avoid long queue times.
It will look for players withing 100 MMR initially, then slowly increase the range by 100 as time passes up to 500 MMR difference.

Let's see how that feels for match quality and wait times.

We will add the UI to view your MMR later on and will probably have a calibration period at some time in the future.

 

[Silen]

Update: We will be turning on skill based match making today.
It will not be matching too strict for now to avoid long queue times.
It will look for players withing 100 MMR initially, then slowly increase the range by 100 as time passes up to 500 MMR difference.

Let's see how that feels for match quality and wait times.

We will add the UI to view your MMR later on and will probably have a calibration period at some time in the future.

Good decision.

 

[Caps]

on beta or the normal branch?

 

[azakhi]

on beta or the normal branch?

Normal, 1.4.3

 

[Mabons]

Although I will be sticking to the beta servers for now I am very happy with this decision!

 

[Terco_Viejo]

Hopefully with this kind of decision, together with a polishing of the combat system (much better after the patch, congratulations to the participating members and devs) plus a solid server infrastructure, this can be overcome and preogressively returned to an acceptable pool of players.

I'd like you to start talking about the next modes. Battle mode is very much missed and even though you know you won't have it back (big mistake imo), which mode will you bet on as Battle's successor...

 

[Ling*]

Update: We will be turning on skill based match making today.
It will not be matching too strict for now to avoid long queue times.
It will look for players withing 100 MMR initially, then slowly increase the range by 100 as time passes up to 500 MMR difference.

Let's see how that feels for match quality and wait times.

We will add the UI to view your MMR later on and will probably have a calibration period at some time in the future.

So far queue times have been pretty ridiculous for some of us captain players, over 10 minutes and cant find a match in a 5 man party, or even a 2man party has to wait over 5 minutes. It may very well be impractical to force-balance players into teams at this early stage in MP. MMR itself is fine to have but the autosorting of players is causing high skilled players who normally play together to have way too long of a wait time to play because there simply arent enough other high skilled partys queuing at the same time during regular gaming hours.

 

[Ling*]

@AVRC @azakhi What is the mmr cieling? Like the highest value it can be? Because judging by queue times many competitive players feel wayyy beyond the 500 mmr gap between casual public players. This would basically limit us to just playing with eachother...and there simply arent enough of us with high mmr. How is it calculated btw? Wins/Losses? I have over 1000 wins and probably fewer than 300 losses, what does this mean for my mmr?

 

[azakhi]

@AVRC @azakhi What is the mmr cieling? Like the highest value it can be? Because judging by queue times many competitive players feel wayyy beyond the 500 mmr gap between casual public players. This would basically limit us to just playing with eachother...and there simply arent enough of us with high mmr. How is it calculated btw? Wins/Losses? I have over 1000 wins and probably fewer than 300 losses, what does this mean for my mmr?

I don't think there is an upper limit, it kinda limits itself since what you gain/lose depends on your MMR vs enemy's. Currently it seems like highest Captain mode MMR is 2684.
Just saw the last half of message. We are using Glicko to calculate MMR changes. Basicly everybody starts with a base value. After a match, winners gain MMR and losers lose. The amount depends on the comparison of sides. Against a team with higher MMR you gain more/lose less and opposite for against a team with less MMR.

 

[Ling*]

I don't think there is an upper limit, it kinda limits itself since what you gain/lose depends on your MMR vs enemy's. Currently it seems like highest Captain mode MMR is 2684.
Just saw the last half of message. We are using Glicko to calculate MMR changes. Basicly everybody starts with a base value. After a match, winners gain MMR and losers lose. The amount depends on the comparison of sides. Against a team with higher MMR you gain more/lose less and opposite for against a team with less MMR.

Ahh thank you for the clarification, im assuming these calculations were implemented retroactively? Meaning all our early access games were probably used in the calculation?

 

[HancockT35]

Update: We will be turning on skill based match making today.
It will not be matching too strict for now to avoid long queue times.
It will look for players withing 100 MMR initially, then slowly increase the range by 100 as time passes up to 500 MMR difference.

Let's see how that feels for match quality and wait times.

We will add the UI to view your MMR later on and will probably have a calibration period at some time in the future.

Will the MMR be reset once 1.5 comes out?

 

[Ling*]

Ahh thank you for the clarification, im assuming these calculations were implemented retroactively? Meaning all our early access games were probably used in the calculation?

Or did we have our mmr calculated from games weve played this week? Im just a bit confused as to which matches were counted and from what time period they occured in when this mmr was decided. @azakhi

 

[azakhi]

Ahh thank you for the clarification, im assuming these calculations were implemented retroactively? Meaning all our early access games were probably used in the calculation?

Or did we have our mmr calculated from games weve played this week? Im just a bit confused as to which matches were counted and from what time period they occured in when this mmr was decided. @azakhi

I will answer once I clarify some things with the team.

Will the MMR be reset once 1.5 comes out?

@AVRC

 

[AVRC]

I will answer once I clarify some things with the team.



@AVRC

All EA matches counted for the calculations. That's why some long term very good players are at very high mmrs and are finding it hard to get in matches.

We don't want to fully reset the mmrs because players earned those ranks but a nice middle ground solution looks like to normalize everyone's mmr towards the average. This way all players keep their relative mmr and get in a tighter pool to get matched with.

Also, in the future Clan Matchmaking should solve the issue with very high ranked full stacks finding matches. In the meantime I suggest solo queuing for shorter wait times while we do adjustments to the system and mmrs.

 

[KSHMR]

@AVRC I have high ratio won matches vs lost matches. So if I don't want to wait so long I need to start losing matches?

 

[AVRC]

@AVRC I have high ratio won matches vs lost matches. So if I don't want to wait so long I need to start losing matches?

Naturally higher ranked people take longer to find matches. It is the universal tradeoff, fast queuing vs better quality matches.

We will adjust the system and mmrs to improve the experience.