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[StaIker]

I'll make no secret of the fact that I regard the current matchmaker as hopelessly inadequate for the needs of the players. This has nothing to do with how it balances games by Mech or player but is due of the total lack of choice or pre-drop information. How exactly can a player or a team customise their Mech effectively when they have no idea what conditions they'll be required to fight in, nor what other players on their team might be choosing. To play at anything other than a "giant robot pew-pew" level of sophistication, pre-drop information must be part of the normal matchmaker system.

Further to that, the failure to honor the promise not to force 1PV and 3PV players into the same queue is doing immense damage to the existing community when there is simply no need for it to be this way.

This is how it should have been done.



A player who just wants to shoot other robots simply selects the view mode they prefer and then presses INSTANT ACTION. They skip the server list and are put directly in the priority server of their choice. As this server receives all the players who press INSTANT ACTION as well as being selectable from the main server list it will fill up rapidly and the time between games will be little different from a single queue as it is now. As soon as the priority server is full, the next in line is given priority status and filled for a game and so on, to keep the rotation going.

Once a server is full, the players should have about 60-90 seconds to select and configure their Mech to best suit the conditions and to integrate capabilities with their team mates.

Players who select CHOOSE A GAME are taken to the Server List. From here they can pick any game they like, the trade-off being that the wait until the server is full may be longer. However if the number of servers remains dynamic, it can be matched to the total number of players online at a given time and as the priority status moves from one server to the next, all will be launched within a reasonable period. Players who don't want to wait at all should just select the INSTANT ACTION option from the Loadout Screen.

There is also a PERSISTENCE option which can be checked. This will keep a player in a server after the game has ended, avoiding the need to return to the Loadout Screen and begin the process again. This provides players the opportunity to have many games in a row with or against the same people, an excellent way to integrate new players into the broader community as they can be sheparded through the learning curve by their team rather than be lumped in with strangers for each new game.

This system would have avoided all the trouble with view modes as well as provide PGI invaluable information about player preferences. As it stands now, people are forced to drop into random servers because they have no choice. Even if 90% of players hate a particular map or game mode, where else can they go? Such a system provides no feedback as to where PGI should be directing their efforts.

A server system based around choice would provide the feedback necessary to let PGI see where the demand lies. Some options will be extremely popular, others less so. The server list can be weighted to reflect the demand in choices with many servers offering the most popular game types while still having a few to cater for the niche interests. As it stands, forcing all the players into the same type of game pleases no one.

[Stingray Productions]

...currently i'm ok with the way it is now....but you've created a topic with a lot of great detail and information. I suppose after reading this, all i can say is, "if they decide to try this, I wouldn't mind jumping on-board and trying it myself."