Organized Play vs Matchmaking
_INTER_
Join Date: 2009-08-08 Member: 68392Members, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2009-08-08 Member: 68392Members, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow
Patch 263 rolled out and the long awaited Gather / Organized Play matchmaking was introduced officially. But is it really what we expected? Honestly I was quite dumbfounded when I first gave a look at it in the beta. Didn't wan't to mention it yet, because everything is under heavy development. However the GUI has progressed quite a bit and I feel like thats the direction it is going. I know it could all change again and features will be added, but if what I had in mind is still to come, UWE's way of doing it would be really strange.
What does "Organized Play" seem to do:
There's a "lobby" where the already created "rooms" are shown. You can join one depending what region, map and playercount you like. Once you joined you're in a room with everyone else that will participate. You can chat and need to wait until admin starts.
You can also create a new "room" on UWE's server or your own server. Once the game starts, teams are assagined (random or hiveskill random?). The number of players is fix, so if you leave nonone else will fill the spot (yet?).
My dissapointment: I don't see the merit over "Server Browsing" play. You can do the exact same thing with "Server Browsing", apart from hosting on UWE hardware.
What I expected with Matchmaking, when it first popped up in this forum:
Automated assignment into a game where the players are about same skill as you. Preferably you were able to choose what side you want to play on, Marine or Alien. Then your prefered position: Lifeform, Equipment, Commander. Nothing would be fix however, because NS2 needs you to be flexible.
After you have chosen, the system should calculate teams from a pool of other players and their preferences. Then start the game.
You could also think of some sort of league system where you can try and raise your rank, similar to SC2 / LoL. That would give an additional reason to stay and play NS2.
The point is: You're in a team with people with +- same skill. Ofc its difficult to measure skill in a teambased game like NS2, but since you're trying, why not use and refine it?
Edit: A thought I had not considered: Does the "lobby" show every "room" or just a selected few (e.g. created by admins with about same skill as you) ? Admitted, if they intend the later, it would be what I expected.
What does "Organized Play" seem to do:
There's a "lobby" where the already created "rooms" are shown. You can join one depending what region, map and playercount you like. Once you joined you're in a room with everyone else that will participate. You can chat and need to wait until admin starts.
You can also create a new "room" on UWE's server or your own server. Once the game starts, teams are assagined (random or hiveskill random?). The number of players is fix, so if you leave nonone else will fill the spot (yet?).
My dissapointment: I don't see the merit over "Server Browsing" play. You can do the exact same thing with "Server Browsing", apart from hosting on UWE hardware.
What I expected with Matchmaking, when it first popped up in this forum:
Automated assignment into a game where the players are about same skill as you. Preferably you were able to choose what side you want to play on, Marine or Alien. Then your prefered position: Lifeform, Equipment, Commander. Nothing would be fix however, because NS2 needs you to be flexible.
After you have chosen, the system should calculate teams from a pool of other players and their preferences. Then start the game.
You could also think of some sort of league system where you can try and raise your rank, similar to SC2 / LoL. That would give an additional reason to stay and play NS2.
The point is: You're in a team with people with +- same skill. Ofc its difficult to measure skill in a teambased game like NS2, but since you're trying, why not use and refine it?
Edit: A thought I had not considered: Does the "lobby" show every "room" or just a selected few (e.g. created by admins with about same skill as you) ? Admitted, if they intend the later, it would be what I expected.
Comments
Here is my little "solution" for this:
ENSL.org for real gathers and implement a PUG vote as an alternative to random for pub servers.
Most servers have there regular players and they know the skill of each other so they can have a "gather" on the fly as an vote.
I am excited that they added a "vote even teams" <- that will solve allot of problems if everyone consistently votes for it at game start. Uneven teams makes the gameplay boring.