Punish bad lobbies
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@cocucka I think I saw some numbers about 4v4 share vs no-share on this very forum posted by the devs, trying to find them now
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The objective arguments for a full share queue were always better than for no share. There would have been only be a 4v4 full share queue if it wasn't for all the outrage on the forum and similar that we need a no share queue, as full share was perceived as game-ruining by many. At least they argued so. So we reached the compromise to launch with both. Iirc the no-share queue started with around a third of the total 4v4 games, but then quickly died of until it was compeletely and absolutely dead. At that point it was removed.
So the "surprise" was that it died in spite of all the people insisting that it would be popular. I can't speak for anyone else, but in my perception the original intution was that we should launch only with full share, the backlash from the community introduced some doubts, so we changed plans in a "well, we could be wrong with our original assesment" line of thought. But in the end the original intuition proved to be right. -
@blackyps Yeah, I suspected as much and it feels like the right call, although, ironically, it kind of set a bad precedent. At least that argument is now dead and buried, though, mostly, thanks to that extra work. Is it worth putting in a similar effort again to settle the matter of gap tmm? I have no idea how much work it actually is, but I also have a gut feeling that it's a problem the community will have to face at some point, if the long-term goal is to reduce emphasis on custom games.
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As previously stated by Brutus a gap queue is highly unlikely just due to the number of players and connections. The reason it can work in custom games is because in lobby you know if players can connect to others or not and thus they can be removed. With the matchmaker this is not possible.
And as we already see complaints about failure to launch with 4v4 it only grows exponentially with 6v6. And this is even assuming that all the recent elevated connection issues are resolved.
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The technical implementation to launch some sort of gap queue is not an issue (I am purely talking about setting up such a queue. The issue Sheikah mentioned is highly relevant), but there is more to it than just technical aspects.
You can't just try something like that and then pretend like it never happened when it fails. People will demand experiments with other maps/other configurations etc. Not to mention the question of whether we want single map queues at all in principle.
I haven't really seen a coherent argument for map-specific queues that doesn't fundamentally conflict with the vision of the matchmaker as it is now, and I believe that has less to do with the specific map and is more just that, a fundamental incompatibility. -
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@cocucka said in Punish bad lobbies:
Well, can someone explain what I am doing wrong?
You're doing nothing wrong, it's unfortunately like that, until slowly, it isn't anymore. Still faster than waiting for gap matchmaker. You can try hosting 3v3s or 2v2s if you want, they might fill faster, but that's assuming you want to play those kinds of maps.
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@sheikah with the current connection issues I also don't think a gap queue will be a good idea.
Launching it in a half dead state will keep players from using it even if it becomes rather stable some time in the future.
But a 4v4 astro queue could be a test project.@blackyps said in Punish bad lobbies:
People will demand experiments with other maps/other configurations etc
I don't really see much cries for more no-share queues. (at least not to an amount that would be annoying)
So I don't think if it actually fails, you'll see an unbearable amount of requests for other configurations. The settings for these games are pretty clear and there are only really 2-3 maps that are played to that extend.@blackyps said in Punish bad lobbies:
I haven't really seen a coherent argument for map-specific queues that doesn't fundamentally conflict with the vision of the matchmaker as it is now, and I believe that has less to do with the specific map and is more just that, a fundamental incompatibility.
What is the vision for the matchmaker that makes it fundamentally incompatible with how a large portion of the players play the game?
I don't think the matchmaker should tell players how they are allowed to have fun, by purposefully removing options that a large portion of players find fun.
But it should try to show people where the fun might be for them in an intuitive way.
So someone new to the game should be able to look at the matchmaker page and find a gamemode they'll like and have the simple requirement of hitting a button and waiting for a match instead of searching the custom game section, checking for all the settings what they do, informing themselves which settings are good and then getting kicked because they haven't played enough games.
With Queues for different maps you have everything uniform with all differences laid out directly on the selection screen And if you don't know what "dual gap" is, you only need one game to see the map and see the difference to other maps, while noticing different ingame options might be a harder feat to accomplish. -
The matchmaker is the place where we carry out the vision how forged alliance should be played for the optimal rts experience. That's why balance is adjusted around the matchmaker, there are leaderboards for the queues, the maps in the pool are picked in an effort to provide a reasonable broad range of playing scenarios and that are of high quality.
It's not illegal to play custom games, so this notion of telling players how they are allowed to have fun seems like a very weird interpretation to me.
I don't think it's an inherent goal to have as many games as possible organized through the queues. Many people in custom games seem to want to play specific slots on specific maps with specific settings. Which is fine, but we can't provide this with a matchmaker. People that don't like the exact configuration of the queue or want to control the spot they are playing in, would still play custom games.
Then there are all sorts of complications when starting a map-specific queue: Why does balance not accomodate that map as well, why do some maps have a specific queue and others don't, where do we draw the line to create a queue for a map -
Why don’t you extend this argument to balance then? Matchmaker isn’t a slave to some “popular will” just as balance isn’t. They exist in a window of creating the expected FAF experience. If people want to go outside said window and mess with a variety of settings, they have custom lobbies. It doesn’t matter for balance if 95% of FAF is dual gap, astro, de_dust2, or trouble in terrorist town. It also doesn’t matter for the matchmakers.
Likewise, people surrender a ton of control for the ease of automated lobbies. So the matchmakers do carry a responsibility in telling people what is fun because it becomes the game situations and dynamics in which balance is centered around. We also tinker with the constant question of “no game vs bad game” as well as how much of a concern asymmetric slot balance is. I don’t see any pattern of behavior in how any of these systems work that fit your description of them.
As an example, matchmaker basically carried the whole concept of full share being a better game experience than no share down from the 1.8k+/sentons area where it was basically quarantined into the rest of the community. I had to deal with tons of people explaining to me why it’s terrible back even during the 2v2 queue implementation. These days, far as I know, it’s basically dual gap and astro that only don’t play with it.
Which brings in ANOTHER reason why it would never be implemented: we absolutely cannot have different share conditions implemented in a coherent manner and just for these two random maps. It “worked” for 4v4 because you had full share and no share, but that was still bad because new players have no idea what that means. But at least you see that these two queues are differing in SOMETHING. A “no share dual gap” has no full share to contrast with and tons of new players are just going to see bases blow up with no discernible reason to expect it.
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@ftxcommando Can you provide some statistics about whom and how prefer playing faf?
Currently "It also doesn’t matter for the matchmakers" sounds like "we do not players to get fun" or "we want a cyber sport league" or even "95% of players are fools".
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I fail to see why I would gather statistics in something I said doesn’t matter, nor why that burden is put on me.
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@ftxcommando said in Punish bad lobbies:
I fail to see why I would gather statistics in something I said doesn’t matter, nor why that burden is put on me.
Since you have no evidence your hypotheses like "95% of people play in wrong manner" must be as valid as others hypotheses like "gap/astro queue should exist".
Consequently, I mean developers have to say "we do not want this because we have no time/dislike these maps/do not respect such players" instead of blaming people for gameplay preference over lobby simulator.
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dont understand, host lobby host rules host right to break rules. some want opti gap, some want fixed spawn gap, some want 1500+ gap, some want all welcome gap and then still kick you bcs their friend joined. yes its annoying that games take time to start, but introducing more queues would just makes sense if you can bring 100k new players maybe. and punishing hosts for hosting lobbies doesnt sound right.
maybe introduce auto lobbies with a strict set of rules, a voting system and an obs waiting queue, the lobby stays alive after game starts and after you died you decide if you keep your spawn for next match or leave. -
@blackyps said in Punish bad lobbies:
The matchmaker is the place where we carry out the vision how forged alliance should be played for the optimal rts experience. That's why balance is adjusted around the matchmaker, there are leaderboards for the queues, the maps in the pool are picked in an effort to provide a reasonable broad range of playing scenarios and that are of high quality.
@ftxcommando said in Punish bad lobbies:
Why don’t you extend this argument to balance then? Matchmaker isn’t a slave to some “popular will” just as balance isn’t. They exist in a window of creating the expected FAF experience.
These arguments are competitive vs casual environment, which doesn't have to necessarily translate to matchmaker vs custom games.
Why can't you have "casual" queues, these can be marked as "no-share for quicker games" or something and a "casual" tag would also explain them being exempt from balance considerations.
It's just how LOL sometimes has a featured gamemode queue (don't know how it currently works but a few years ago it was like this), where you can queue for some map with wildly different settings or an ARAM queue a gamemode mostly played in custom game, that got so popular for it's simplicity that it got made into a queue. Nobody there is expecting the game to be balanced around those modes. (Astro is basically ARAM for FAF)@ftxcommando said in Punish bad lobbies:
So the matchmakers do carry a responsibility in telling people what is fun because it becomes the game situations and dynamics in which balance is centered around.
yes the matchmaker should have the responsibility to show new players the fun in the game. That is not where you intend the fun to be, but where your players see the fun. That's why you want different queues for different kinds of players.
@ftxcommando said in Punish bad lobbies:
As an example, matchmaker basically carried the whole concept of full share being a better game experience than no share down from the 1.8k+/sentons area where it was basically quarantined into the rest of the community.
Then I have no idea how it can be an argument the queue would fail to be used because of a slightly different map version or game settings.
@ftxcommando said in Punish bad lobbies:
Which brings in ANOTHER reason why it would never be implemented: we absolutely cannot have different share conditions implemented in a coherent manner and just for these two random maps.
I agree that it shouldn't be a DG queue right next to the normal matchmaking queues, but having a special area for such a queue solves the problem of explaining to people, that this is a completely different environment and game experience. Maybe simply tagging it "no-share" would be bad and it should rather explain it as "once your ACU dies all your units also die (No-Share)" or something like that.
@blackyps said in Punish bad lobbies:
why do some maps have a specific queue and others don't, where do we draw the line to create a queue for a map
You could ask the same in other games, like LOL where only some featured gamemode has a queue and the others don't. You need to keep the number of queues low to not divide your playerbase, but you should add queues for very popular modes.
@conny_action said in Punish bad lobbies:
but introducing more queues would just makes sense if you can bring 100k new players maybe
Why would you need more players?
The queues wouldn't compete with existing queues, but instead draw on the players from custom games that play this "gamemode" anyway -
@conny_action said in Punish bad lobbies:
maybe introduce auto lobbies with a strict set of rules, a voting system and an obs waiting queue, the lobby stays alive after game starts and after you died you decide if you keep your spawn for next match or leave.
Sure, this is was my initial post about. But this actually would be matchmaking queue) Hence no need to hardcode new mode while it is already implemented in queues.
