The lack of players playing ladder matches isannoying but obviously there are people playing.
Right now there is atleast 4 people from the top 10 playing games and everyone is playing bots.
I think ladder matches should have an option to allow searching vs players only.
It would also be cool to see how many players are playing ranked in active matches and how many are searching matches.
We plan to add an option to let players have more precision in matchmaking (i.e. that it'll wait forever if necessary).
However, bear in mind, that in ranked, it will not place a rank 3 player against say a rank 7 player no matter what.
Why not? maybe have the lower rank player get more points and the higher rank player not to lose points unless he is playing someone in the top 10, 20 or 30.
That should crop out any flukes.
But yes that explains a lot.
E: OFC priorize everyone to get even match
In Forged Alliance Forever there is a notification bar to let you know when somebody of your skill rating is currently searching for a game and you can just click on it to jump in a ladder match.
Frogboy can you make that information about the ranked mm accessible. Like in ranked mm window put a little message that says "ranked matches only take place with players of near equal rank... +/- 2 ranks " or something of that nature.
~ football13tb
Being able to see the # of other players searching would help.
Telling players when their search is expanding into wider ranks (both higher and lower) would help.
After searching for a while most games allow matchmaking to occur across a wider skill range. The MMR takes care of this - the lower ranked person loses very little for a loss, the higher gains very little for a win but at least they get to play. With replays, the lower ranked person can then watch and see why they lost. There is also the chance the lower ranked person is actually a better player and still making their way up the ladder. For most players this is far preferable to not getting ranked matches or just having repetitive matches vs, bots one after the other.
Being able to see the # of other players searching would help.Telling players when their search is expanding into wider ranks (both higher and lower) would help.After searching for a while most games allow matchmaking to occur across a wider skill range. The MMR takes care of this - the lower ranked person loses very little for a loss, the higher gains very little for a win but at least they get to play. With replays, the lower ranked person can then watch and see why they lost. There is also the chance the lower ranked person is actually a better player and still making their way up the ladder. For most players this is far preferable to not getting ranked matches or just having repetitive matches vs, bots one after the other.
agreed 100% Having bots in the ladder will only drive players away if match making conditions are too strict.
While it is not nice to get your ass handed to you by much better players it is certainly more fun than constantly playing AI, plus you really don't learn anything playing versus AI.
Lots of great suggestions in this thread. The above sentence seems waay too narrow. Anybody in the top 20 should be allowed to play each other at least. Especially right now where in theory you can climb quite high up the ladder and barely play a human (i.e. ranking is not yet purely based on skill). The ideas of setting the range yourself or it expanding over time are all good. If the range is too great the players should have the option of not taking the match perhaps, that way a less player can reject someone they think may be too powerful for them, or they can accept them knowing that they will likely be thrashed but can learn from it, (especially if there is a replay).
AI in ranked play is really easy, so yes the player who have more time will get to the top. so far i have played 20+ games in the ranked auto-match
and as i remember i only got to play with 2 Humans player the were bots,
So yes i do ask the Dev's to disable bots from ranked games, we already have the single player Skirmish games to play against bots.
Beta2 Brought a lot of new players to AOTS and when the game get release will bring more players, so ranked game will get better and better.
Yeah playing against bots killed the enjoyment for me a bit.
This is a tricky thing to solve, i understand when he says that a rank 3 player will never play a rank 7 player, like in sc2 terms a GM player will never play a bronze player.
Problem is what if there isnt anyone else in the ladder to play?
I mean i really apreciate new ideas when laddering and matchmaking is concerned, but i believe that unless you have a couple chalenging AIs that represent in starcraft terms, for example bronze, silver, or diamond level, you cant really place bots in the ladder.
Like if you design your AI to represent how a player on a certain league or ranking would play, it could give you a few points for that sure, but it should never boost you to the top, or place you above other people that activily play the game against other players.
Its a hard system to properly make.
I think id rather implement the ladder system like every other game does it, without bots, and then perhaps add a notification bar like Forged Alliance Forever has. And show something along the lines of "A player with a similar skill level is searching 1vs1 ranked!!", works wonders, it really does, at least for me.
The bot idea is interesting, it really is but i think its a bit too unfair because people can just clim to the top by just grinding games, and i dislike that grind the ladder mentality which is a bit agravated by playing against bots.
Now other things you could probably implement is a way for people to know someones skill level in the custom games section, to help balancing teamgames.
Apologies, I think I misunderstood. I was thinking 3rd best vs 7th best. But each rank must be a kinda "collective noun" for a bunch of players of a similar ability so 3rd to 7th could be a very wide gap. Sorry, I haven't paid much attention to the ranking system yet, my bad .
I guess its like leagues, or some kind of leveling system, where when you win you rise, when you loose you drop?.
There are some pretty persuasive arguments in this thread.
While it is always tempting to stick to ones guns for the sake of being resolute, I must admit that it might work better to let people who have progressed reasonably through the rankings to be ranked up with higher level players.
Just make sure if you wanna keep the AI in there, at least let it be more chalenging than it is right now.
From matchmaking data we know that right now even if any human is matched against any human it won't help much. People don't sit in the queue long enough to get matched so players miss each other.When Ashes is officially released we'll see lots more players. If we open up matchmaking to all human players regardless of rank there are issues. A Rank 8 player is just getting out of the "kiddie pool" ranks where you can't lose stars. That player matched up against Rank 2 is almost certainly going to get stomped. Hard. I don't think that's going to be much fun for either player because of the disparate skill levels. If that happens a few times the Rank 8 player may quit entirely.With a larger population everyone should find players of their skill and have fun, challenging matches against players of similar skill. We can ditch the AI players, or at least reserve them for off-peak times.
I agree with you, but, the problem is that the AI itself doesnt provide a fun experience.
Too easy, it really is, unless for complete noobs at the game, but even after 3 to 4 games playing the same AI, i bet everyone is going to notice its an AI, since it plays the exact same way resulting in predictable behaviour.
It really is the same thing over and over again.
So unless you actually improve it? why have it in there at all? maybe only for the first ladder games to teach people how to play sure.
Right now it seems that ~4 minutes is the max the search allows before it just pairs you with an AI bot to fight. I'd be happy to search for 10 minutes if it meant a greater chance of finding a human opponent. I had a bunch of custom games last night vs. good players and the game really comes alive with interesting tactics in a way that just doesn't happen vs AI.
That doens't really make sense. The AI rank itself wherever it ranks itself.
What will happen is that good players will pass by where the AI players are and never match up with them anymore.
Yeah, game does come alive vs decent humans.
One reason I am not playing ranked at the moment is because in Beta 1 all I got was brain dead AI. No fun. Even if you put in Normal AI at this point it is too easy, maybe the first time or two you try new things but after that not so good.
This must be somewhat dependent still upon the number of players. In Beta 1, I made it up to 2nd (or was it 3rd?) on the ladder and was still getting mostly bots. Some of them had high ranks, but I still had my way with them all day long. So it does seem we need more people playing so that we can push the bots down into the lower ranks where they belong.
But, having a few bots that are more challenging could make the current ladder rankings more realistic because players like me (medium skill) will lose more often and would have a harder time floating to the top just by grinding out enough matches v AI.
I agree that some beginning players can learn from AI opponents. Better players might still learn something from harder AI. But where this breaks down is when the AI has to cheat (although I understand that can be useful at times for gathering information). And as a mid-level player, I would much rather learn by getting obliterated by a high ranked person than any sort of bot, cheating or not.
Anyhow, the TL;DR; version of this: I'd rather wait in the queue a while longer so I can play a person.
That doens't really make sense. The AI rank itself wherever it ranks itself. What will happen is that good players will pass by where the AI players are and never match up with them anymore.
Problem is, when nobady is actually playing, you will play an essentially bad AI over and over again, dont you think thats an issue? and coming from previous RTS experinces the ladder will be empty on specific times of the day.
Also i had a very bad initial experience when i figured out i was playing vs an AI bot, it felt really bad.
Damn i got so used to play Against the AI in Ranked game that when i got a real player i did not notice it was a real player till like 20 minutes in the game and it was very late for me to win. he had air units and T3 and i never played an AI with good air and T3 units...
I cannot take serious a AI in a ranked game, they just suck right now.
Here is my idea, what about keep the AI in Ranked games till like Rank 5 or 4 and after that the higher lvl players will get to play against another player.
So here is my Idea.
So new players who want to play Ranked games let them play, they will have to learn to play the hard way by practicing till they can beat the AI before they can jump to play against the good players.
So if the player cannot win against another player of the AI they cannot they will have to stick and learn to play by getting better to win against the AI.
So new players who want to play Ranked games let them play, they will have to learn to play the hard way by practicing till they can beat the AI before they can jump to play against the good players.So if the player cannot win against another player of the AI they cannot they will have to stick and learn to play by getting better to win against the AI.
Yeah i agree with that suggestion, however those Ai's should not have too many bonuses, otherwise it can teach people wrongly, but yes i agree with having at least 3 to 4 ai levels even with some moderate bonuses applied.
The ranked players float based on their wins. Right now I think the best ranked Ai is rank 8.
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