Final Solution to Unfair Matchmaking

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Many individuals have been speculating over the solution to the issue of drastically one-sided pub matches, offering such poorly conceived solutions such as: "an mmr system that works for small communities" , and "ban party/clan stacking in pub matches"... These are poorly conceived because they only seek to treat the symptoms of a much greater problem, instead of trying to fix the problem at the source. Attempting to address any problem like this is as foolish as trying to apply pressure to a headshot wound, or attempting to fix a hemorrhaging gash by taking Tylenol; it is a fruitless endeavor! (Sad!)

Therefore, for the sake of brevity I present the main problem to you readers as such; Warband veterans and Bannerlord newcomers can not peacefully coexist in the same pub servers, at least right now.

So how do we fix this problem that may very well be causing many new-players to be "turned off" of the multiplayer experience, once and for all? Segregation.

Taleworlds should add an option for newcomers to the multiplayer branch of the game that simply reads "Have you played multiplayer in a Mount and Blade game before?"

If answered "Yes", the player will automatically match into servers with other M&B multiplayer veterans, and if answered "No" they will automatically match into separate but identical servers where they can appreciate the game more among new players of more equal skill level and circumstance.

To be clear, this separation would not be permanent. Once the new player accumulates "X" amount of hours (Let's say 300-500) they will be put into the higher skill servers automatically.

Thank you for your time in reading, to be clear I feel that I just needed to make this suggestion as it appeared to be the obvious solution to me, in comparison to the other more convoluted ideas being suggested.
- F
 
This is a good thing in paper, but will never work because, mainly, there are no new players sticking around in order to form teams against other new players longer term. What TW needs to do is get rid of the things that make the game ****, do a marketing push for multiplayer with trailers when the time is right and make the game good.

Why should 'new' players stick for a game that:

1) Put you against clan 4-6 stack in matchmaking?
2) Have no choice in faction selection at all, while the factions themselves have MASSIVE differences between them, unlike warband that the differences were more toned down
3) Getting locked to classes you do not even like, in factions you do not even like
4) Unbalanced combat where a 1-h weapon can either spam or it sucks total ass


The game's problems is not the matchmaker, it's the fact that the population is so low that it offers no people for newcomers to play with in their level, or even remotely near their level most of the time during a day.
 
Why should 'new' players stick for a game that:

1) Put you against clan 4-6 stack in matchmaking?
2) Have no choice in faction selection at all, while the factions themselves have MASSIVE differences between them, unlike warband that the differences were more toned down
3) Getting locked to classes you do not even like, in factions you do not even like
4) Unbalanced combat where a 1-h weapon can either spam or it sucks total ass
There was no possible way to address all of the problems with this game in one forum post (there is a character limit lmao) this is just my take on this one specific issue...
 
Not sure I can get behind this 'final solution' lol. I think the ideas in the right place but at the moment it will just split the playerbase and you'll see a lot of people smurfing with it too. This issue probably can't be solved until there's a bigger player base, as most of the people left playing are veterans at this point.
 
There was no possible way to address all of the problems with this game in one forum post (there is a character limit lmao) this is just my take on this one specific issue...

But that's the whole point. The Band-Aid that you've suggested simply won't work until TW finally un-f****s the game in general and the Skirmish mode specifically.

As soon as I read the OP, I had two quetions right away:
1. What keeps people from simply lying that they aren't Warband/Bannerlord vets? And even if there is a system that checks for their number of played hours or whatever, what keeps an especially toxic tryhard from rolling a fresh Steam account for free and smurfing on these newbie servers just to "pwn n00bz"?
2. Skirmish mode isn't very popular to begin with. If we split its population once again, the queueing times will naturally become longer. The demographic that you care about is, by its nature, casual, so it hates having to wait. So how likely is it that, in case they can't find a match fast, they'll dump the mode and go play TDM or SIege instead?

There is no easy way to fix Skirmish. It is plagued by its own inherent limitations. TW needs to bring the custom servers, 10v10 or bigger battles, and modding tools. In other words, to bring back all the things that made Warband great. Only then will there be a large enough playerbase to make the current esports format at least marginally viable, although I doubt that it will stick in the end.
 
Skirmish is trash in general, respawning ruins the game and it's nothing more than infantry fights dragged out to extremely long TTKs between them, only for cavalry to ambush behind their back or archers killstealing. This existed in Battle too, but it was much more controlled and fair.
 
The problem is that if you make bad players only play with bad players they will never improve and some of them want to improve. Also there are not enough good players in NA rn to make it work.
 
Skill based match making is currently active. As people play more matches their MMR will settle better.

Handling stacks' overall MMR by artificially increasing their average MMR depending on their size is planned for the Ranked Matchmaking which is in development.
 
Skill based match making is currently active. As people play more matches their MMR will settle better.

Handling stacks' overall MMR by artificially increasing their average MMR depending on their size is planned for the Ranked Matchmaking which is in development.
It's actually getting worse and worse. Currently more than half my games start at 0-2 and I have to bring it back most of the time. It's pretty frustrating when you see that all the players on the other team have a 750 badge win. Some of the time I can't even chose class cuz i spawn directly after joining the game.
 
It's actually getting worse and worse. Currently more than half my games start at 0-2 and I have to bring it back most of the time. It's pretty frustrating when you see that all the players on the other team have a 750 badge win. Some of the time I can't even chose class cuz i spawn directly after joining the game.
As I said, we are working on Ranked Mode and that should end players leaving matches others joining mid match.
 
As I said, we are working on Ranked Mode and that should end players leaving matches others joining mid match.

I dont mean no offense but the game is at the lowest population it has ever been, at least that's what it feels like. Why do you make a ranked system exactly? The game needs different drastic changes.
 
As I said, we are working on Ranked Mode and that should end players leaving matches others joining mid match.
Custom servers would be better for the short term and long term. Ranked matchmaking will make the game even more empty (especially on the highest level), and let's be honest, literally no one will play it when custom servers are out. In order to ensure the security and continuing stability of bannerlord, custom servers are the only solution. Ngl it would be a waste of time for both TW and the community to work on/ wait for ranked matchmaking. Here is why: Custom servers will probably be out at the end of EA (so 31st of march based on the 1 year duration of EA). On the other hand, TW is working on ranked matchmaking, which will probably take a while before coming out, and even more time to be polished. Let's say early November. That's what? 5 months of ranked matchmaking with a declining population.

However, releasing custom server files would:
- bring back population
- make tournaments more interesting and easy to make
- remove most of the trolls
- provide different skill servers, only with the reputation of the server (ex: IG_Battleground for comp players, Wolfpack TDM for casual players)
- Make it way easier to test bugs, experiment mechanics, create strats, etc
- Add more diversity to the game (some dudes will make custom gamemodes really fast)
- And finally give the community what they deserve.
 
Every matchmaking based on skill eventually gets ruined by smurfs anyway. People will create new accounts just to mess with newbies and boost their ego after getting stomped on 'pro' servers where they're not good enough or simply they want to play with their friends who are not that good. Any division right now is bad idea, there is simply not enough people playing this game, especially skirmish to even think about splitting player base further.

And people prefer community run servers anyway, so maybe first let's get that.
 
The problem is that if you make bad players only play with bad players they will never improve and some of them want to improve. Also there are not enough good players in NA rn to make it work.

That isn't the case in practically every game with MMR. But Bannerlord is always going to be small enough that good players get low-ranked players on their teams.

Every matchmaking based on skill eventually gets ruined by smurfs anyway. People will create new accounts just to mess with newbies and boost their ego after getting stomped on 'pro' servers where they're not good enough or simply they want to play with their friends who are not that good. Any division right now is bad idea, there is simply not enough people playing this game, especially skirmish to even think about splitting player base further.

And people prefer community run servers anyway, so maybe first let's get that.

Except this game has a huge price tag, compared to the majority of games with smurfing problems that are free or go on sale frequently for like $10. I doubt smurfing will be much of a problem. It's just a scapegoat people use most of the time.
 
That isn't the case in practically every game with MMR. But Bannerlord is always going to be small enough that good players get low-ranked players on their teams.
MMR is a poor solution to this problem due to the fact that 3/4 of the players are "Silver 1" players and "1/4" are Global Elite... Games will be determined by who gets more Warband veterans on their team, and this will continue the problem of new player disenfranchisement because they will not be able to feel their impact on their MMR as it will seem like a hat draw to them... EVENTUALLY.. things will theoretically even out, which seems currently infeasible due to the fact there are only two lobbies of players playing the matchmaking game modes on peak hours on a weekend.... Therefore it seems that any attempt to balance teams will become dependent on whether there is an even or odd number of Warband vets playing (And this does not even account for stacks!).
 
MMR is a poor solution to this problem due to the fact that 3/4 of the players are "Silver 1" players and "1/4" are Global Elite... Games will be determined by who gets more Warband veterans on their team, and this will continue the problem of new player disenfranchisement because they will not be able to feel their impact on their MMR as it will seem like a hat draw to them... EVENTUALLY.. things will theoretically even out, which seems currently infeasible due to the fact there are only two lobbies of players playing the matchmaking game modes on peak hours on a weekend.... Therefore it seems that any attempt to balance teams will become dependent on whether there is an even or odd number of Warband vets playing (And this does not even account for stacks!).

I think there's more middle ground than you think. It will be mostly unbalanced, but the best players will always manage to rise to (near) the top of the ladder while ladder sweats will get rank 1.

Anyways, custom scrims will always be superior to Ranked in most every way, especially for top players.

But there's still reasons to have Ranked, since it can encourage average or new players to get better. Seeing numeric progression is important to a lot of people and it's much easier to join a ranked game since you just need to press a button, compared to a scrim where you have to do a number of steps.
 
Custom servers would be better for the short term and long term. Ranked matchmaking will make the game even more empty (especially on the highest level), and let's be honest, literally no one will play it when custom servers are out. In order to ensure the security and continuing stability of bannerlord, custom servers are the only solution. Ngl it would be a waste of time for both TW and the community to work on/ wait for ranked matchmaking. Here is why: Custom servers will probably be out at the end of EA (so 31st of march based on the 1 year duration of EA). On the other hand, TW is working on ranked matchmaking, which will probably take a while before coming out, and even more time to be polished. Let's say early November. That's what? 5 months of ranked matchmaking with a declining population.

However, releasing custom server files would:
- bring back population
- make tournaments more interesting and easy to make
- remove most of the trolls
- provide different skill servers, only with the reputation of the server (ex: IG_Battleground for comp players, Wolfpack TDM for casual players)
- Make it way easier to test bugs, experiment mechanics, create strats, etc
- Add more diversity to the game (some dudes will make custom gamemodes really fast)
- And finally give the community what they deserve.
You do realise that the servers are still not stable? They didnt even publish their duel gamemode, so they probably got engine problems when creating new game modes or some other issues.

Ranked gamemode is litterly already done, they just need to add UI and icons on top of the mmr system.
 
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