High Level / Specifically named skilled servers.

(Beermachine) #1

Firstly, want to say that I’m really enjoying Dirty Bomb, closest game experience to my beloved RtCW / ET since, well ET (played Tribes / NS2 as my skill based shooter alternatives till recently).

To my point, the game really needs either level restricted servers or just some servers named specifically for more skilled players to easily identify where your guaranteed to get some good pub games. I realise that competitive is supposed to fill this niche, but being an old school player there’s no denying that K/D and W/L tracking is a bane of good games, as it heavily encourages stacking and non objective game play (less players suicidal reviving vital engineers, tapping disarm objectives, less medics etc etc).

While competitive play is undeniably the “ultimate” experience, RtCW and ET had some absolutely amazing servers (Jolt 3 and the 2 Belgium telnet ones for example) where the top players congregated for high quality pub matches, and even clans practiced against the regulars. The high level of average skill also lead to the best (as in most evenly skill balanced) pub FPS games I’ve ever experienced. Level restrictions weren’t needed, as newer players who joined didn’t stay on the server long due to the skill difference, and the 30 minute or so waiting time to join was a major discouragement to all except the ones who were happy for the wait to be guaranteed excellent games for the rest of the evening.

Apologies if this has been posted before.

(Szakalot) #2

yup! we absolutely need a way to separate 100-200+ hours players from <20hours. This won’t split the community, it will simply make the experience enjoyable for everyone. Newbies wont get smashed and call the game P2W, veterans will have challenging games that don’t go ape****, just cause one good player disconnected.

Present pub experience for any veteran is carrying games. I don’t necessarily want to feel like the result of the whole match is up to whether I’m playing to win, or want to fool around. The only way to get a balanced game is to have another good player on the server, on the opposite side. But one more good player joins and its a stack all over.

It also makes it impossible for veterans to play with their friends.

And comp MM is not quite ready yet, with the issue of premades vs. solo queues, and the amount of players not quite saturating the ranked pool for each rank to be representative of a certain skill level.

(Protekt1) #3

I’ve been playing ranked more lately and I think ranked is the best way to achieve better balanced matches. Sure, the level servers would be kinda nice. But that doesn’t work long. Cause a bad player can be high enough level to join.

What they should do is add incentives to playing ranked. Perhaps they intend to do this already but haven’t implemented it or activated it yet since the game is still in open beta.

I know the solo queue experience could use some work. But a large part of it is just growing pains for a new game. As more people use ranked, the better it’ll become. As the ranks are given out and the system puts them in appropriate ranks, it’ll become better for matching similar skilled players than any level restricted server will ever be. So in a way, level restrictions are just a short term solution, whereas ranked matchmaking is a long term scale-able solution.

(Szakalot) #4

Thing is: I like casual. I like to join a random 8v8 clustershag server, pick a class i feel like fooling around with and blaze away. Atm. I can’t really do that as easily, cause 50% of the time im the only closed-beta player on the server.

Sure: high lvl players can be bad, they can have terrible aim&reflexes. Chances are though that they are good teamplayers: as a medic they will give you revives, as skyhammer you’ll get ammo packs from them; and you can expect them to know the maps as well.

A lvl5 player doesn’t know none of that stuff. Barely knows 1-2 maps, likely still uses ironsights, has no knowledge of movement and how to dodge, or how to exploit weakness of each merc.

Max lvl5 servers are there to help out but:
a) there is not enough of them, they are almost always saturated, and lvl1 players get dropped into games with people with hundreds of hours of gameplay
b) lvl5 is not enough to prepare a person for the onslaught of closed-beta veterans. We could at least use another stage, like max lvl10 or 12

(prophett) #5

Need some “Level 15+ Veterans Server - East”

(Protekt1) #6

Sure, we should still get those kinda servers. But I’d also like to see them push the ranked side more.

Also, let us filter server browser based on both level requirements and max player count.

(NeroKirbus) #7

When ranked play gets all worked out, it’d be neat to have one of the season end incentives be an obsidian card of a character as long as you are a certain rank.

What I would like to see is an unranked matchmaking queue to allow groups of friends play against another group, as it is quite frustrating to empty servers left and right just because you want to play with your friends… It would also be an awesome ground for practice before getting in to ranked play.

(Glottis-3D) #8

They should have a proper noun, a sonorous name. so that ppl know, you cannot be a pussy out there.
PLayers will say i’ll go to ‘Proper name’ server. and everyone is like “OMG, so hardcore!!”

suggestions:

-Cobalt mine
-Gutter city

(Violator) #9

I’m having similar experiences at the moment, I find I’m the only ‘oldskool’ player on the server probably 70% of the time and end up carrying the team (despite not being the best aimer in the world) + can’t find any of the other closed-beta players. We need a lot more low-level only servers and some ‘level 10+’ / ‘level 15+’ servers as well. Ranked seems to be full of the other extreme - hard-core comp players which I guess is what its aimed at.

(poiuasd) #10

I feel like this should be one of the top priorities right now. Most older players don’t like playing with noobs and vise versa. The average pub match right now is extremely boring if there happens to be a closed beta player in there but I guess SD doesn’t see this as an issue judging by the dev stream last night.
I mean, how hard can it be to convert some of those consistently empty regular servers into high level servers? It’s not like there’s some new tech that needs to be coded for this anyways.

(Anti) #11

[QUOTE=poiuasd;530855]I feel like this should be one of the top priorities right now. Most older players don’t like playing with noobs and vise versa. The average pub match right now is extremely boring if there happens to be a closed beta player in there but I guess SD doesn’t see this as an issue judging by the dev stream last night.
I mean, how hard can it be to convert some of those consistently empty regular servers into high level servers? It’s not like there’s some new tech that needs to be coded for this anyways.[/QUOTE]

We think it’s a problem that needs to be solved. We don’t think level is the best measure of ability (because it’s not), so we’re considering other ways to balance matches and looking at how long each of them might take to add to the game. If we need an interim solution then maybe we’d consider high level servers, but by no means is it a long term solution.

(Pakaa) #12

The time spent getting to 10 should IMO at least be enough to assure that players know the maps, modes and abilities. I realize experience isn’t the best measure, but as it is now, the skill at the bottom is ridiculously low AND prominent. As time goes on experience will be a worse indicator, high level servers should’ve been there at the start of open beta.

It’s not as much about assuring balanced games for top players as it is protecting the younglings (that don’t stick to <lvl 5 servers) from getting stomped, IMO.

(Glottis-3D) #13

ranked based should be long term.

  1. join empty server.
  2. server gets your RANK as server rank.
  3. ppl see now server rank and game advice: “too easy, easy, skill matched, hard, too hard”
  4. they join server and server’s rank updates
(Anti) #14

[QUOTE=Glottis-3D;530863]ranked based should be long term.

  1. join empty server.
  2. server gets your RANK as server rank.
  3. ppl see now server rank and game advice: “too easy, easy, skill matched, hard, too hard”
  4. they join server and server’s rank updates[/QUOTE]

There is already a ‘Public Skill Rating’ attribute that ‘pub’ servers have, which is based on the average skill of players in the session and it re-balances teams (on match end) and joiners (via Quick Join) with it.

It’s by no means the most scientific of ratings and it needs some balancing still, but it’s similar to what you’re suggesting and should be more accurate than level.

(Amerika) #15

[QUOTE=Anti;530865]There is already a ‘Public Skill Rating’ attribute that ‘pub’ servers have, which is based on the average skill of players in the session and it re-balances teams (on match end) and joiners (via Quick Join) with it.

It’s by no means the most scientific of ratings and it needs some balancing still, but it’s similar to what you’re suggesting and should be more accurate than level.[/QUOTE]

Why does the balancing happen during the matches end when everyone gets cases and leaves or just needs to leave? I understand that doing it during the warmup period before a match starts would make some people who wanted to play on the same team upset but it would help alleviate the imbalance issue. I assume you chose to allow one negative to avoid the other?

(Szakalot) #16

well, the cat is out of the bag for now; and skill levels are slowly starting to overlap, so individual games are more enjoyable.

Full release absolutely needs a way to protect the newbies from the veteran onslaught, and temporary high level servers (or more variety in max level servers) would solve this easily.

(Anti) #17

Biggest concern is that people want to pick Mercs based on if they are attacking/defending and if we then shuffle them to the other team that’s going to invalidate their choices.

We are looking at other things we might be able to do (one example is opening cases in the lobby to reduce churn) but there are no obvious easy fixes around that part of the match for shuffling.

(Glottis-3D) #18

[QUOTE=Anti;530865]There is already a ‘Public Skill Rating’ attribute that ‘pub’ servers have, which is based on the average skill of players in the session and it re-balances teams (on match end) and joiners (via Quick Join) with it.

It’s by no means the most scientific of ratings and it needs some balancing still, but it’s similar to what you’re suggesting and should be more accurate than level.[/QUOTE]
thats good, but it would be good for people to see the actual rating in the browser. because i never use quickjoin, only browser or MM.

(PixelTwitch) #19

as much as I hate to say this…

Maybe just lock some of us “better” players out of low skilled games using the public skill rating.

“Sorry your skill level is too high for this server”

(Glottis-3D) #20

[QUOTE=PixelTwitch;530874]as much as I hate to say this…

Maybe just lock some of us “better” players out of low skilled games using the public skill rating.

“Sorry your skill level is too high for this server”[/QUOTE]

this is how it is done in quakelive.