Matchmaker Pool Feedback Thread
@redhotchilipeper If you want, I made a post a couple of minutes ago with a tierlist. Even though it's rather directed towards high ranks, knowing what other people think prob won't hurt
@plasma_wolf
There have been zero 20x20 maps in the 3v3 matchmaker. Thus far, the maps in it have all ranged from 10-15 km. You can look at the map pool here
pfp credit to gieb
Ok let me rephrase. Can we have 3v3 maps where the t3 air rush is not mandatory? even the 12.5x12.5 maps have this 'fun' feature.
I am concerned that most generated maps I played in the mode are 4v4 in nature. Thus there is an asymmetry that leads to 2v1 commander battles and short games as one commander dies and others don't have enough control anymore.
Asymmetry is usually appreciated in maps, because it makes the gameplay less stale. Depending on your rating, you play on maps with a set amount of "slots". They are usually 10+ in total..
I'm not happy how teams can preset themselves in a manner that allows "new" accounts to lock with a "high" account and go into team games. It brings the higher rated player into matches against players they normally wouldn't be setup against. Inevitably the "new" accounts DO NOT play at the level that they are supposedly at either. So it makes for a very one-sided match as the normal account/ranks just get steamrolled by the vastly superior high ranked player and the suspiciously good low ranked accounts.
It's not fair, it's not fun and it very much smacks of rank manipulation. This isn't just randoms doing it either- spikeynoob has done it repeatedly as well as a number of other high profile players. It makes it so that I don't want to play in the ladder because i know some ultra pro is going to just stomp my entire team without thinking while i'm barely able to perform basic functions in the game as it is.
Would be nice if you were capped, yes. Would also be nice if it actually applied to custom games too. Games with ridiculous rating disparity are just terrible data for the system and half the reason you have completely unintelligible ratings across the various “ecosystems” in custom games.
Feedback:
I'd like to see some mapgen maps at the lower ELO ratings.
As a brand-new player, getting a map that nobody has played before feels refreshingly 'fair'. It seems odd that they are limited to the highest skills, given that they level the playing field for players that haven't learned maps by heart.
And another thing - I don't like 'non-standard' maps being in the map pool. I had a cry on discord about williamson's bridge and its complete lack of 'going around defense'.
I can see the idea behind picking it for the low-rating players - 'easy to defend for new players'... But I think it results in teaching the wrong lessons to new players. Not to mention it being a bad map to play (imo).
Just my tuppence, of course. But this is a feedback thread! 
Just a reminder that these low rated players who have maps learned by heart, still are low rated. That means, even with their superior map knowledge, they still are unable to climb the ratings. That means that, if you're equally rated, you should be equally matched, just with each player more skilled in other aspects of the game (goes for all skill levels really)
Also, williamson's bridge is not a defensive map. it's notorious for players destroying eachother's bases resulting in a base trade, even. if your opponent builds point defense you get the map for free, build more tanks, and roll over their base
besides all that, i understand the want for mapgen
frick snoops!
@waffelznoob said in Matchmaker Pool Feedback Thread:
Just a reminder that these low rated players who have maps learned by heart, still are low rated
And low-rated players that do NOT have maps learned by heart, are also low rated. I'm not sure how this is significant?
Thanks tons for the reply btw.
I've lost a bunch of games from not knowing map-specific 'tricks'. Like huge reclaim fields in certain spots, or edge-building (cliffs) to allow expansions without transport craft.
While much of this is a learning curve, the idea that new players should be extra-vulnerable to 'I don't know this map' losses seems odd to me.
I can understand it in most games, of course. But in a game with auto-generated maps in the ladder pool (which is absolutely AWESOME!), I can't see why the feature is reserved for high ELO.
It's great for veterans, sure, but it's great for new players, too! For aforementioned reasons, as well as variety, and testing a player's ability to adapt to new situations quickly.
I just think random maps sound awesome, and it sounds like they should be bestowed on new players, too. (I can't think of a reason not to, and can even think of a few reasons that it is extra-important!)
If you couldn't find the huge reclaim field in a premade map, you wouldn't find it in map gen either. That's just knowing ctrl+shift is important in looking at a map when you spawn in and are unfamiliar with it.
Edgebuild is still kinda fair (as a complaint) just because the build range circles for units is still not integrated into base game iirc so someone with the ui mods to press shift and see if their engineer/acu can reach on top of a cliff is going to have that competitive advantage. But that's still something you can find out before fully playing a map the first time. Assuming you do have that ui mod, anyway.
The logic of building up to map gen is that lower skill brackets need to "learn the lessons" of some maps in a more controlled environment. This map style forces X or makes Y more optimal because of Z or W reasons. Map gen has so many externalities that it just increases the noise and therefore the pains of learning said lessons because you can't actually isolate certain things in a map as causing certain interactions.
@ftxcommando your suggestion do disallow big rating spreads is crazy. Imagine you manage to convince a friend to try this game only to then be denied the option of playing with them. Are faf promotional efforts that good at attracting new players that you're ready to sacrifice this basic human interaction just to have ratings converge a bit faster? How are you gonna justify banning smurf accounts after you make that the only way of playing alongside your beginner friend?
If a change to tmm is really warranted because of this problem, my vote is for configuring the matchmaker such that it tries to find a similarly structured opposing team, rather than what you suggest. If a 1500 + 1500 + 100 premade is in queue, it's ok to match them vs 1400 + 1400 + 300. TMM is unavailable half the time simply because not enough players are searching for a game, any further restrictions on team compositions would only make that worse, and for bigger games, your proposal constitutes a harsher restriction than mine. But there's a delicate balance between wait times and match quality that needs to be struck, and if the scales are tipped too far towards the latter, people stop queueing because of the wait times, compounding the issue, so I'm not convinced the problem justifies the cost.
As for custom lobbies, in addition to the argument above about friends playing together, there's the fact that for many noobs, astro lobbies are the only option. No matter how much we wished it wasn't the case, if a noob hosts any other map, their lobby won't fill unless the title is "all welcome". This is because other new players rarely get in the mood to try something else. When they do, the friction imposed on them should be minimal.
Custom games can be reasonably well balanced if 2 noobs join, especially if the map layout allows the host to put them against each other, and it's far preferable to hoping a noob is willing to try hosting, and they're in the mood to pick a map they never played before, AND 7 other noobs decide to join. Not gonna happen until the nr of players online is an order of magnitude higher.
Besides, since when is global rating such a treasure to cherish when It can be gamed so easily? Why put up such outrageous barriers to play just to protect this flawed system from a bit of variance, when it's been the general guiding principle of faf development for some time to steer players towards ladder/TMM and league standings anyway?