Thanks for feedback, tried summarizing a lot of things at once so may have been a problem with ‘consistency of thought’
Onto some topics I wrote about (shorter version)
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Blizz thought that greater supply than demand would solve the issues of generating fair game experience for everyone… Alas, that didn’t happen, or even if it did for a while, people felt “repetitive” in the game’s experience because of the way how averaging/MMR works (2 below)
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MMR is based upon nothing else but relative MMR of other opponents as well as the game’s outcome, that leaves A LOT of problems to be created later on… As stated/hypothetized before = MMR (the way how Blizz uses it) is based upon w/l streaks, meaning it doesn’t hold ground and jumps a lot, that is why there’s a severe looking lack of “natural progression”
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No other way/reward-feel of effort, player has no control on to what they get at all, in DotA for example people can choose language/server, here we don’t have a single map veto. That alone gives some (albeit small) still some amounts of control
Keep in mind I posted those analysis based upon the experience of my personal own (and some observations ofc.)
Namely,
people often write/whine/rage they “Cannot carry”
but ultimately
My personal obsrevation/experience is a simple feed back of cannot gain control of their type of ladder experience rather… For example: Cannot veto maps, can’t choose classes/types of playmates required/wanted (or lack there of)… Even ranked aside = why not be able to choose “practising Dragon Shire map all day” type of Search ? (doesn’t matter the mode…)
Imagine if you could have a button of “I am a good melee/flex/bruiser player, looking for a player playing predominantly main tanks” type of supply/demand control
Basically ANYTHING that would give the player itself at least some basic form of PERSONAL CONTROL of their ranked experience control
Why do I think this holds ground, well:
Ultimately people are dissatisfied/in-shock at times when they:
- get the illusion they can grow
- attempt doing so by accepting to be responsible of more things in order to feel more consistent
- aren’t “taken seriously enough” and end up being kept in the dark or simply with their hands tied (out of control)
And that’s how most of the time the game felt (at least to me) tbh, ends up being a huge alphabet/bible of over/compensation
Gamble/Bet mechanic
Even when that is denied, there’s another mechanic I suggested/talked-about
A small form of: “practise rank climb” functionality in the form of “gamble bet vs reward” (think this isn’t badly written in the doc, won’t write here again to avoid clutter)
Basically predict your outcome of the game, down from 50% (100 ranked pts win/loss) up to 200% (400 pts win/loss), that way by each player doing their “bonuses by prediction” of their own => there can 3 things be achieved on the fly
- A player itself shows their confidence level (if they feel underranked/overranked or just about), would they like “more shots” at current rank/difficulty or just put it to 200% and “breeze over”
- B = gives the teammates enough information about yourself (confidence/commitment) level of your own, i.e. gives them the how much to expect from you type of information
- C = reduces the need for automatic form of control, i.e. the PRA and favourability stuff is no longer controlled by the “AI system” but rather the players themselves each on their own
Why I think might/would be a good idea: IMO ultimately it’s better to appease to the try-hard sincere worker/learner rather than design a system that punishes the emposter/cheater and keep a “mistrust” toward every other non-cheater type of player in return
There’s also a bit of part where I say that partially the playerbase/players themselves are partly responsible for that type of attitude by Blizz as a result and forced the devs do “reactionary” rather than “visionary” measures/changes/patches and so on
And ultimately Blizz DID do visionary measures but they never referred to the matchmaker itself though… We had changes of stealth mechanic, changes of structures/experience, recent/about-to-be ? changes of roles, and so on, but NEVER a one on the matchmaker
Another part is where I talk about the complexity/scale of the way how they envisioned/thought-out PBMM, and the way how it’s overly-complex system to maintain (and turned out to be the case so as they gave up on it as soon as released lol)… Such an ambitious endeavor requires investments of HUGE scale and portion
But again = the fact that they treated players like “babies” mistrusting they could manage their own “quality of interaction” ended up with the current result
- People leaving disappointed and sometimes even deceived even when they necessarily were not
- Due to the way how average/matching works each and every player that leaves the game, makes it harder/worse for others… But ultimately can’t judge the players themselves cause again = they were treated like “irresponsible babies” and were not offered any trust by the system but only being hit/avoided by punishment (or lack thereof)
PART 2
Part 2 talks about how the famous team-game irl “league ranked system” (even with low supply/demand) would/could work
Even when/if the game fails, could “rise up” back again, again:
By giving the player itself has ALL THE INFORMATION (therefore arguably all the control?) they need of potential allies/opponents they could get in a game UPFRONT
This should be a good format cause ultimately even if less people encouraged = the game/ladder-system of that type will give them the chance (or at least illusion) that they’re INDEED in control of their compositions/gameflow and EVEN IF NOT = they can still “get a grasp” of what to expect though
Long-story-short => GIVE THE PLAYERS more trust/mechanisms-of-control, for example = if “block communication” was “Avoid as Ally” there may have not been need for silence/punish system for example… And so on
Sorry for the lenghtly format, thought would be better to describe in details and not just what the thougth process but also the reason/background of those, hence the way how the doc was written, disregarding the fact that other people reading it the first time would have a “W.T.F. is this dude talking about” lol
Some background thoughts of why I think those would hit the mark IMO
First of all - I personally am AGAINST making the game yet another DotA/LoL clone, the game itself gives enough feel of impact of each and every hero on their own way, it’s just that you can’t control what you get (nor have an idea of what you COULD GET INTO) by the matchmaker makes the frustration (of the vast majority of it) IMO
And lastly but not the least - think that giving the players themselves more responsibility/control (and trust therefore) would lead to less toxicity (and better playing experience) after all, it’s not enough to talk about clouds and pink roses, we have to be in ACTUAL CONTROL in what we could get (or at least have an actual valuable info of why that could not be done) in order to deliver others with those kind of behavior/talk
Hope that if not the doc, then at least this post (summarized/shorter version) made things clearer to ev1 curious about the “mysticism” of this game’s success (and failures) overall
Ultimately hope that even if you don’t agree with points brought, should be a good “kickstart” for useful feedback/discussion further on