3 replies to this topic

[Solahma]

I was going to make an in-depth pitch for this idea with illustrations and perhaps a video, but alas It is more important to bring up this suggestion sooner rather than waiting for the free-time. I'll do what I can.

Summary: A "rematch" request and accept feature for Solaris that will allow players to continue fighting against one another instead of searching for a new opponent.

History: Look no further than Tekken 7 for a well-implemented rematch system. Tekken 7 is a 1v1 fighting game where players battle each other in a best-of-five format. After a winner has been decided, either player can request a "rematch" against their opponent. The other player has X amount of time to accept the rematch or decline and search for a new opponent.

What this would mean for MechWarrior Online Solaris:

• Removes search times for participating players.
  
• Consistent, quality matches if you find a player of similar skill-level.
  
• Playing against better opponents to improve your gameplay.
  
• Learn from mistakes, practice and test new strategies in a more controlled environment.

1. Remove search times for participating players. This does not require much explanation. If two players engage in a rematch, they will not need to spend time searching for a new opponent. There is also the potential that two players will match against each other if they both enter the queue at similar times, meaning the search was mostly wasted time.


2. Consistent, quality matches if you find a player of similar skill-level. This is great benefit of a rematch feature. Two players who are having fun battling against one another can continue to fight as long as they want. This has the potential to work WITH the Elo matchmaking system to create very balanced fights so long as both players are enjoying themselves.

3. Playing against better opponents to improve your gameplay. Sometimes you will be matched against an opponent who is simply better than you. You can use a rematch mechanic to continue playing against an opponent who consistently beats you. Why? for your chance to finally get him back! even if it's just one win against this great player, LET ME AT EM! The ability to continue playing in this "underdog" environment, voluntarily, can help many players improve at whatever rate they are comfortable with. A great example of this is once again Tekken. There are many streamer personalities that will continue re-matching against a winning opponent until they can consistently beat them. This point is also a potential pit-fall of a rematch mechanic, which I will go into later and pitch a solution.

4. Learn from mistakes, practice and test new strategies in a more controlled environment. Closely tied to the previous point. A rematch feature would allow a player to get to know their opponent better. What the player tends to do or play in given situations. This is a good opportunity to learn how to counter certain builds and strategies while keeping the skill-level exactly the same. It's difficult to tell if you're doing something right if you are matched against different opponents every time you try.


Pit-fall of this mechanic: Ranking abuse. The only issue with this feature I could come up with is the potential for players to abuse the rematch system to increase their ranking. Imagine a player is matched against their alt. account on a separate computer. He defeats the non-existent opponent and continues to farm rank indefinitely with the rematch system. Here is what I have to say about this issue and potential solutions:

• It would be fairly difficult to continue abusing the system in this way. As a player's main account increase in rank, the alt accounts will plummet, thus they would no longer be matched together again in the future (theoretically).
  
• Rematch ranking rewards could be adjusted. Earning less and less with each rematch. A system could keep track of the matches and how many rematches have occurred and only adjust ranking after consecutive rematches have ended. This system could rewarding much less for extremely one-sided wins.
  
• Rematches could simply be made un-ranked... but I'd personally like to see a more robust system to avoid rematch abuse.
  
• Limited rematches is also an option. Players are only allowed to rematch against one another # amount of times. This resets after searching in the queue for another opponent (which could be the same player anyway).

Per the first point, this might be a non-issue that requires no adjustment or special tweaks to the reward structure. Ultimately I believe the best option is to reward less and less per consecutive win in a chain of rematches, but that might require much more additional work and could be outside the initial scope of this feature.


Reddit post:
https://www.reddit.c...ure_suggestion/

EDIT:
Another potential issue that just came to mind is the effect rematches would have on the search time for others. If a group of people are constantly rematching each other, that's less people in the queue to match against for those entering the matchmaking system. That could affect wait times and match quality. This is a bigger issue than abuse really and really puts a hole in the idea. I'm not sure if this causes issues in games like Tekken 7, but the population of MWO overall is lower than Tekken 7 (on steam at least). And Tekken 7 is almost entirely about the 1v1 whereas in MWO we have many different "buckets" splitting up that smaller population pool. Could it still work? probably. But It's definitely something we'd have to wait and see for.

Edited by Solahma, 27 February 2018 - 06:08 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

As I said on reddit...

Given the farming/abuse that went on in MWOOC2017 - I am not thinking this going to/should happen.


I am not saying it isn't a good idea, it is, especially with the load times vs match duration. Shortening that will be very helpful.

It's just too open to abuse and as with MWOOC2017 ladder system which was never addressed.

[Solahma]

justcallme A S H, on 27 February 2018 - 02:54 PM, said:

As I said on reddit...

Given the farming/abuse that went on in MWOOC2017 - I am not thinking this going to/should happen.


I am not saying it isn't a good idea, it is, especially with the load times vs match duration. Shortening that will be very helpful.

It's just too open to abuse and as with MWOOC2017 ladder system which was never addressed.

To quote my response on reddit for visibility:

Quote

But let's assess how much of a potential there actually is with abuse. The more I think about it, the more it seems unlikely. If matchmaking is Elo based, then any abuse with alternate accounts would be shut down very quickly as the alt account's Elo becomes much lower than the abusing primary account. Even in a situation where two players, with similar Elo decide to continue playing each other over and over, one will ultimately come out over the other. It's actually a very balanced system. It naturally weeds out abuse.
I'd like to hear more specifics and details about HOW this system can actually be abused given what we know about Solaris. What situation would actually result in an unfair advantage, in the rankings, to players who rematch?

Quote

For one, MWOWC in the competitive queue is much much different then an Elo ranked 1v1 format. There really is no comparison in terms of "farming" or abuse.
At the very least, the same type of abuse that would already exist in PGI's current Solaris format would be just as bad with or without a rematch system. In fact, a rematch system can have a specific reward system to account for playing against the same account over-and-over, which DOESN'T exist in the currently planned format. From where I sit, there is more potential to abuse the base Solaris ranking than a rematch system.

I'd love to hear specifics on why you think this would be anything like MWOWC competitive queue issues and how the Elo matchmaking system wouldn't prevent consistent abuse. At the very least how an altered, dynamic reward system for rematches couldn't solve this issue.

Edited by Solahma, 27 February 2018 - 03:04 PM.

[Solahma]

This thread became invisible in the section... odd