Ladders in 1.0

...Blizzard also was rolling in cash.

I try to focus on the new player experience, Neutrino, for many of the games I play, because that's where a lot of them can't get it right. A ladder and matchmaking system will really help improve that experience. I'll happily test your system with this in mind when ya'll make it. Hell, I'd love to help in any way I can with the time I have.

lol what.

Training against ai is already in place. just needs the ui for it
Unranked and ranked are basically the same ladder system. Only one doesn't give you points.
Custom games are already in place and is how we currently create and join games.

What does rolling in cash have to do with it.

Elodea, I was speaking of a directed system - thus, matchmaking to match you with players who are also newbs.

Hidden elo in LOL is a nice touch.

I have a question to people who want ladders.

If PAStats can matchmake with an independent list, that both list rank numbers, and autobuilds game...

...And most people playing competitive both have the internet and participate in the forums (my jump of reason is lead by the fact most competitives have to learn high level play somewhere and they usually also participate in these forums for both balance suggestion and for feature suggestion)...

...Then wouldn't a ladder ran entirely off a player mod not be a discouragement to use the ladder? Anyone with the umpfh to play ladder would easily download ladder to play it, going out of the way to do so.

That is an arguement against ladder unfortunately. Hold your rotten tomatoes for a second.

My arguement FOR ladders, is that it can't be too hard to do it if PAStats can do it, just give people a number gain/lose system with the maths and stuff, and then make an auto-game-generation, then make a button taking you to a list of just people who just want to auto-generate for laddered 1v1. If you made it similar to that, PAStats did it, and it couldn't take more than 2-3 weeks of work. Delay 1.0 for 2-3 weeks for a feature? Nobody would ever have an arguement AGAINST that. Do it as the very last thing you do to PA before release. If you don't want to by then, like if it is december 20th and last bugs were removed, then feel free to skip it. I am just saying, it sounds like 2 weeks of work and/or work even modders with some webdesign skill can do.

Yeah a half assed version isn't that bad. Maybe we even just include PA stats, I dunno. We're thinking about it like I said.

If you are going to delay a few weeks, why not take the time to do it full-stop?

Is there an estimate on what the difference in time commitment would be??

Latest numbers according to PA Stats:
2051 Users
83485 Games
32747501 points of data
81469065 units created
28087035 units destroyed
overall game length 1494d 5h 20m 53s
average game length 25m 46s

Everyone seems to think that most games are very long in PA (60+ mins), but clearly most games that are tracked by the user community (those who are even interested in keeping track of their performance) to date falls into that classic RTS game length of 20-30 mins.

I for one think that people are overemphasizing the importance of matchmaking for the 1.0 "launch". I think that to date, the fact that the game is not polished (graphics, more game browser sorting/filtering options, advanced unit behaviors, alternate win conditions, etc.) and doesn't perform well when scaled up (that is if it doesn't crash) has driven more people away from playing the game than the fact that there is no built-in matchmaking system. The fact is that the people who care already have an alternative (PA Stats).

I would rather that a feature like a more advanced communications system like Comno-Rose, which I have suggested in the past (https://forums.uberent.com/posts/859322) get built into the game before matchmaking, or possibly a 3rd party VOIP tool get hooked into it (Mumble, TS3, etc.), much like Twitch has already. I think that would do more to engage people, and bring them back to the game to play more than in-game matchmaking would. Hell, even new features, like the unit cannon, and gas giants, being able to play games from the replays, would be better to implement before matchmaking in my opinion.

Again, we are just speaking about timing here. I'm not even sure how many more players that the 1.0 launch will attract who haven't already bought the game. Seems to me like it will just be an incremental amount equal to that of the previous significant launches. Hopefully I'm wrong and the fabled 1.0 Launch will be HUGE! However, being someone who owns the game already, I would rather see more features and polish come first.

I have a question. What would time commitment look like to you?

I am against an auto matchmaker where it is a single button click, because it really is a flawed system no matter how you do it. You could have an operator literally look at a list of people auto matchmaking, and match them to games, literaly have a human do it by hand, and still end up with people losing faith in the matchmaking matching equal players...

Besides that, what would make ladders better?

PAStats means people downloaded this to play competitive matches usually.

People using it to play competitive matches, means the game was "rational". Usually no crazy 8 planet thing.

Which brings me to why matchmaking would be a little better if the player could not set the rules and map. If standard maps and rules were used and the player has to play that in competitives, then games will last on average 25m 46s.

Good, that will keep games in a regular cycle, 10-40 minutes. People can have many matches in 2 hours time, keeps interest, gives them a daily challenge and enough time to make progress.

Why not add an option to limit the rank or point value of folks that can join to the lobby creator?

Or the ability to sort by the same in the lobby?

Thats a filter. Generally, those are cheap.

I mean, I think modding, ranked, and vanilla games can all fit in the same list with different colored text. Make 3 different colored check boxes to the side, by default all checked, and if unchecked one simply will not show in the list. It will still generate, but will be hidden, not the best optimized but very simple.

Then, make "sorting" by rank, alphabetically, size of game system, ect. Chosen by a drop down menu, maybe even make multiple sorts which sort by one and then the other (size of game then alphabetically, or whatever).

Then, maybe even make another check that is by default "unchecked", and make it show only friend's games or something.

Just all ideas. I am glad this got discussed like this. Even if it isn't about ladders specifically, the way game list generates is a pretty useful deal.

These very well might be interesting intermediate ways to solve the problem.

I'm still liking the idea some people might do some more matchmaking math. Maybe a graph or two

Full stop might be months of work. I've given a bunch of reasons why we are shipping in another thread. Suffice it to say we really don't want to delay the game if we can avoid it.

I get why ya'll are shipping. Just was wondering. Thanks!

Boy are you hoping they'll kill themselves.

So, you and your cohorts have come to the conclusion that the initial influx of players on release day won't be all that massive, which is opposite what many of the vocal members of this forum seem to think. Why do you think that is, do you have more experience perhaps? More importantly, how much of an increase do you expect? (Just a ballpark figure is fine. Real data is nice )

Edit: phone grammar

A little off topic, but I've have been waiting for additional simple features like game server browser sorting (and a few more filtering options) for a while now. Just being able to click on the column headers like Region/Mode/Planets/Slots to sort by them, or being able to filter out Locked games from the list, or a proper auto-refresh option (so you can tell how the games are filling up) would be nice. Exposing more information about the planets in the browser list would be nice too (Halley counts for each planet, and which have been enabled to start from).

Well, the filters are in the PTE now

This is what I think he is saying with the design of constant update games...



I don't know why you needed a graph to grasp this...

Note, I bullshitted it, but it is fairly detailed. Sales are steeper than updates, and they should generally be aimed to prevent the downslope from getting to steep, as this also makes it pop up faster too. Release, hopefully, will just be a steep update, but generally, the update after release should continue an uptrend. That uptrend after release is very generously predicted, it may not be that huge, but if the update is pretty badass and the initial release was real popular, it may just make increase much larger than decrease.

As an added bonus, modders and competitives are the people who AREN'T LEAVING. Not cyclical players. Ask for AI players, they have their own tricks to keep, like updates and fun little single player derpyness and fun buildable games with other friends of theirs. Really, if they play their cards right, they should make more of their playerbase non-cyclical and thus people who play tons of mods or at least some ranked even if lower level ranked, and they should keep updates and new AI play for singleplayer players to keep them coming back like challenge scenarios or something that gets 5 new ones every month or so.

I expect a reasonable size spike on launch similar to our last sale. Generally speaking steam isn't a place where you sell all of your copies up front. It's about continuing to improve your game and grow the audience over time.

If we have some kind of huge spike I guess I'll be wrong and that's ok too!

In addition as I've said before I think an update that is concentrated on competitive features done right would bring a lot of new and returning players to the game. Does this additional information change your thoughts?

Oh I was thinking every single one of my pals who have stopped playing till release would come back just like they've said they will.