Scenario Matchmaking Rework Megathread

[Dackjanielz]

The entire point of objectives is to give the losing side a chance to fight back, the trouble is this has been nerfed so many times that killing is the only viable option.

So as soon as its obvious one side is trouncing the other theres no longer any point in fighting because when you lose you get absolutely F all.

Its terrible game design straight up.

Objectives should play more of a part and the losers should stop being punished constantly.

this goes for RVR aswell, right now the winner takes everything the losers get nothing, so as soon as its obvious your losing everyone just leaves and i dont blame them one iota. I have also noticed that healers are once again punished for healing people outside of group, no RP or crests for doing such things.

So healers are now discouraged to heal or rez anyone outside of group, how is this healthy for the game remotely? If anything healers should get BONUS rewards because they're doing a hard job that no one else wants too!

But everywhere i look on this game the rewards are exclusive rather than inclusive.

Its madness.

If i want to do PVE im going to do Gunbad

That is good, have a spidery time!

[agemennon675]

average forum posters will perform any amount of mental gymnastics required to avoid grouping up.
Surely satisfying their needs will improve the server
)

Make a 40/40 dps on for example order try to group up in /5 just for the testing see how long it takes to make a 2-2-2 t4 sc party, most of the times player who want to group up cannot do it even if they wanted to, that is why these players ask for devs for a solution because playerbase is elitist, and then the next answer comes find a guild, check the serious guild pages and you will see they are only recruiting tanks/healers SL/WL if you arent playing these classes tough luck you can only get in a pug/open warband casual group, after 2 hours of finding a group if you are lucky that is you queue and face double premade rr80+ 4-4-4 you get smashed and players leave journey begins from 0, anyway I dont want to derail the thread here sorry but this had to be posted because somehow certain players just lack empathy to understand the experience of a new player... I am sure devs will make a better system for the scs we tried having matchmaker in the past that resulted in long queue times for everyone and they reverted it, trial and error we will slowly have a better system for everyone as long as decision makers have good intentions and its proven they do.

[Emissary]

Here are my 2 cents.

2-According there are a lot of complains about premades vs pu, introduce the idea of "asymetrical" factions. I explain. We all agree that 12 non organised players vs 2 premades whatever the composition is, lead always to the same result : premades wins.

So i assume that having 2/2/2 PUG vs whateveryouwant Premade is not good. Which drives me to this suggestion :

Put a "weight" on every player (MMR ?) and matchmake a sc on the base of the "weight", as for tabletop warhammer > If side A represent 1000 points, then drop 1000 points on side B, even if it represent 1 or 3 more players. So we could have 1 premade + 3 PU players (9) vs 12 PU players, important thing being to preserve as much as possible the weight balance. (If you think that having non balanced pop sounds like a stupid idea, just look in openRvR )

Very good thoughts, Yali. That is the reason most games have gone to an MMR type system. Does it actually have to be 12v12? or 6v6? Can it be 1000 points vs 1000 points no matter the # of players? Something to think about I would say.

I have zero knoweldge of what is going on with the balance team or the sc changes so I think I can throw my opinion out there and be just that my opinion.

I have all classes in the game and a majority of them 70 or above. I have played in so many different sc iterations whether sweaty premade, fun premade, and/or solo non-optimal build play. I have never seen a scenario where the shields helped. On live being able to kite the stronger team into the guards did give us "lower optimized/skilled" players a fighting chance. The shield just gives us the chance to hide.

I have never been in an sc group that was the ones excited about stomping pugs, in fact we have stopped queing more than I can count just because we knew if we continued we would drive the opposing faction to just log out. A more visible queing system just as in ranked would be leaps ahead of where we are now. Even that small change that most likely could be implimented quickly would be a positive. Even if nothing else changed that would be the quickest solution win at this time.

I would say even a way to see how many in que are a 6man, 5man, 4man, etc would be possible and needed. I could see oh there are no 6 mans queing at this time, well I am not forming a 6 man to just roflstomp pugs.

The majority of our balance team is strict 6 man competive players, so my thoughts would be that the team could get a quick win by working on scenarios as that is where a lot of the strong assetts are at anyways.

I would, however, caution as most of us that have played this game a long time remember when we tried to fix the que system in the past and how quickly we realized that did not work for lower population times. I would suggest a system that would be fluid based on population balance and those in que. Where it went wide open at a certian population queing level and more restrictive the more in que.

[Dezibagel]

I think weighing it heavily towards matching the comps on both sides is the way to go - all/almost all DPS scenarios, whilst a bit dumb and obv. not representative of any sort of group play is some of the most fun I've had pugging around in discordant even if certain things can become a bit oppressive (dps-specced healers...). It's also so volatile it's almost never completely one-sided.

To be a bit of a bummer - some of the problems I think are also inherent to the nature of the game. Small scale with comps is unforgiving to the point of ex. having one clueless lowbie WE standing in the fire eating crits and doing nothing in return can pressure and hamstring entire group to the point where that player unknowingly loses the sc for the entire team. Or one clueless melee WP tanking the sustain of the entire group to the point it quickly becomes hopeless etcetc.

Reward system is also a bit screwy atm, since the best way to grind rr/crests through scenarios is not being in hard fought ones/a good fight, but farming db's in squash matches. This is compounded with the fact that apart from getting smashed you also get absolutely nothing for losing, even if you try.

I like the idea of guards over barriers as a comeback mechanic - however one worry with that is since there's currently very little incentive to actually win sc's outside of your 5/weekend (since ((almost)) all the rewards are tied to kills) that the 'meta' might become trying to kite and lure the enemy to wc with ranged comps. Which would be beyond lame.

Outside of that there's the obv. population issue - you can't really balance it with 10 ppl queuing each side, but by making comps the same at least I think you minimize the risk of a squash.

Suggestions in bullet points:

* Make the balancer heavily weighted towards making the same comps rather than necessarily good ones - a weird but hopefully more equal fight is way better than any squash from ex. healer imbalance imo.

* Tie sc rewards not straight to db's but individual contribution, maybe weighted with RR. Healing, protection and (contributing dmg>>>total dmg) whist not perfect metrics at all at least would reward a hard fought sc way more than a squash and would reward people for playing well, esp. as a tank/healer in the losing team, rather than just getting lucky with their team. No, I did not include objective score, fight me.

[Omegus]

I don't have comments, just questions.

1) What composition will you be forcing onto scenarios, and why?

2) Why are you compensating for bad players who choose not to organise themselves?

3) What work are you putting into fixing the issues for people who want to group up but cannot get invited?

4) Have you considered putting more work into making it easier to form groups and coordinate instead, rather than resorting to spamming the LFG channel? No, I do not mean auto-groups.

5) How does this fit into the overall design ethos (at least under Mythic) that this is a realm war between order and destruction and is not supposed to be a fair and friendly fight?

6) In relation to #4, part of the original design goals was that all content fed into the campaign, including scenarios. The list of open scenarios was linked to what ORvR zones were open, and winning in scenarios contributed towards the campaign and progress to locking their respective zones. This game far more context to why they were more "unfair" and you were encouraged to find a way of winning as it not only benefitted you but the whole realm. Have you taken this into account when thinking about the new system?

7) How well do you feel cross-realm 6v6 team death-match fits into the design for scenarios (which were based on achieving objectives first and kills as a means of doing so), and do you think cross-realm 6v6 team death-match would ever have been signed off by Games Workshop? Yes, I know this is a very toxic question, but the entire existence of that mode and how it functions is to me at least a huge red flag regarding how the devs perceive what the soul of WAR is.

8) And the big question: in general, what is your vision for how player progression is supposed to function in this game? Originally (on Mythic) it was very much a case of rewarding team work, coordination and skill to progress at a much faster pace. With auto-grouping and MMR you seem to be encouraging success and progression without challenge. There is already progression to Invader level though PVE only, and match-made scenarios with MMR would now add another way progressing (this time all the way to BIS) while avoiding the sandbox.

9) Is this being prioritised over ORvR fixes/improvements and if so, why? RvR has devolved into kill farming (killboard has a big part to do with this) and the campaign is meaningless. Why focus on scenarios first?

--------

I know other games take a "me-first" attitude towards progression, but that is not what Mythic did with WAR and IMO was a big part of what made the game unique. Differences in player success, whether it was skill or gear or renown or whatever, typically were not compensated for. Did Mythic go too far with the differences? Absolutely. But this seems like too far the other way. Things like this just make progression and the overall design philosophy of the game - the realm war - feel more and more meaningless.

It's Realm vs Realm for glory and conquest, not Realm vs Realm in a fair sporting competition.

And before I get the "omg u just wan 2 smash n00bs" replies: on WAR I was terrible and at the bottom of the barrel and still loved the game, knowing full well that a lot of my issues were entirely of my own making. And on ROR I play a healer so "smashing n00bs" is something other people do. I just sit back and try to heal, whether I'm grouped or solo.

In before "you are terrible on ROR too". I see you typing it. Stop

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TLDR: encourage player organisation, embrace the sandbox nature of WAR rather than trying to fight it, **** PUGs.

[agemennon675]

I don't have comments, just questions.

1) What composition will you be forcing onto scenarios, and why?

2) Why are you compensating for bad players who choose not to organise themselves?

3) What work are you putting into fixing the issues for people who want to group up but cannot get invited?

4) Have you considered putting more work into making it easier to form groups and coordinate instead, rather than resorting to spamming the LFG channel? No, I do not mean auto-groups.

5) How does this fit into the overall design ethos (at least under Mythic) that this is a realm war between order and destruction and is not supposed to be a fair and friendly fight?

6) In relation to #4, part of the original design goals was that all content fed into the campaign, including scenarios. The list of open scenarios was linked to what ORvR zones were open, and winning in scenarios contributed towards the campaign and progress to locking their respective zones. This game far more context to why they were more "unfair" and you were encouraged to find a way of winning as it not only benefitted you but the whole realm. Have you taken this into account when thinking about the new system?

7) How well do you feel cross-realm 6v6 team death-match fits into the design for scenarios (which were based on achieving objectives first and kills as a means of doing so), and do you think cross-realm 6v6 team death-match would ever have been signed off by Games Workshop? Yes, I know this is a very toxic question, but the entire existence of that mode and how it functions is to me at least a huge red flag regarding how the devs perceive what the soul of WAR is.

8) And the big question: in general, what is your vision for how player progression is supposed to function in this game? Originally (on Mythic) it was very much a case of rewarding team work, coordination and skill to progress at a much faster pace. With auto-grouping and MMR you seem to be encouraging success and progression without challenge. There is already progression to Invader level though PVE only, and match-made scenarios with MMR would now add another way progressing (this time all the way to BIS) while avoiding the sandbox.

9) Is this being prioritised over ORvR fixes/improvements and if so, why? RvR has devolved into kill farming (killboard has a big part to do with this) and the campaign is meaningless. Why focus on scenarios first?

--------

I know other games take a "me-first" attitude towards progression, but that is not what Mythic did with WAR and IMO was a big part of what made the game unique. Differences in player success, whether it was skill or gear or renown or whatever, typically were not compensated for. Did Mythic go too far with the differences? Absolutely. But this seems like too far the other way. Things like this just make progression and the overall design philosophy of the game - the realm war - feel more and more meaningless.

It's Realm vs Realm for glory and conquest, not Realm vs Realm in a fair sporting competition.

And before I get the "omg u just wan 2 smash n00bs" replies: on WAR I was terrible and at the bottom of the barrel and still loved the game, knowing full well that a lot of my issues were entirely of my own making. And on ROR I play a healer so "smashing n00bs" is something other people do. I just sit back and try to heal, whether I'm grouped or solo.

In before "you are terrible on ROR too". I see you typing it. Stop

--------

TLDR: encourage player organisation, embrace the sandbox nature of WAR rather than trying to fight it, **** PUGs.

Lots of points on what you want this game to be like but I think most of these design choices are big contributing factors to games downfall and population bleed happening in this game

[GONDOR]

I don't have comments, just questions.

1) What composition will you be forcing onto scenarios, and why?

2) Why are you compensating for bad players who choose not to organise themselves?

3) What work are you putting into fixing the issues for people who want to group up but cannot get invited?

4) Have you considered putting more work into making it easier to form groups and coordinate instead, rather than resorting to spamming the LFG channel? No, I do not mean auto-groups.

5) How does this fit into the overall design ethos (at least under Mythic) that this is a realm war between order and destruction and is not supposed to be a fair and friendly fight?

6) In relation to #4, part of the original design goals was that all content fed into the campaign, including scenarios. The list of open scenarios was linked to what ORvR zones were open, and winning in scenarios contributed towards the campaign and progress to locking their respective zones. This game far more context to why they were more "unfair" and you were encouraged to find a way of winning as it not only benefitted you but the whole realm. Have you taken this into account when thinking about the new system?

7) How well do you feel cross-realm 6v6 team death-match fits into the design for scenarios (which were based on achieving objectives first and kills as a means of doing so), and do you think cross-realm 6v6 team death-match would ever have been signed off by Games Workshop? Yes, I know this is a very toxic question, but the entire existence of that mode and how it functions is to me at least a huge red flag regarding how the devs perceive what the soul of WAR is.

8) And the big question: in general, what is your vision for how player progression is supposed to function in this game? Originally (on Mythic) it was very much a case of rewarding team work, coordination and skill to progress at a much faster pace. With auto-grouping and MMR you seem to be encouraging success and progression without challenge. There is already progression to Invader level though PVE only, and match-made scenarios with MMR would now add another way progressing (this time all the way to BIS) while avoiding the sandbox.

9) Is this being prioritised over ORvR fixes/improvements and if so, why? RvR has devolved into kill farming (killboard has a big part to do with this) and the campaign is meaningless. Why focus on scenarios first?

--------

I know other games take a "me-first" attitude towards progression, but that is not what Mythic did with WAR and IMO was a big part of what made the game unique. Differences in player success, whether it was skill or gear or renown or whatever, typically were not compensated for. Did Mythic go too far with the differences? Absolutely. But this seems like too far the other way. Things like this just make progression and the overall design philosophy of the game - the realm war - feel more and more meaningless.

It's Realm vs Realm for glory and conquest, not Realm vs Realm in a fair sporting competition.

And before I get the "omg u just wan 2 smash n00bs" replies: on WAR I was terrible and at the bottom of the barrel and still loved the game, knowing full well that a lot of my issues were entirely of my own making. And on ROR I play a healer so "smashing n00bs" is something other people do. I just sit back and try to heal, whether I'm grouped or solo.

In before "you are terrible on ROR too". I see you typing it. Stop

--------

TLDR: encourage player organisation, embrace the sandbox nature of WAR rather than trying to fight it, **** PUGs.

Lots of points on what you want this game to be like but I think most of these design choices are big contributing factors to games downfall and population bleed happening in this game

I don't think balance is what will make people play or be retained - no one really cares how perfectly balanced a game is, only that it's fun. Imbalance can impact fun, but balance doesn't lead to fun.

There are plenty of well-balanced games that weren't fun and have died.

This whole issue isn't about the balance of pugs vs premade; it's about the fact it isn't fun for pugs to play into premade. Auto forcing 2/2/2 is unlikely to fix that too, it hasn't in the past - why would it now?

What we've seen in the past with forced comp queues is queue times explode, and it won't prevent players from not queuing. Solo-ranked queues were a good example of this; you'd see people sitting in queue waiting for 1 more tank or healer for queue to pop. It could be a while to pop, and then one loss later because it got gamed or was crushing, and the queue collapsed.

RoR doesn't have the population to support MMR bracketing either. We've seen this through various ranked seasons, even though participation may have been at a high, the banding kept having to get wider and wider so players could even get a pop - literally making the whole purpose of MMR meaningless.

The whole "we want people to group up, so we will only acknowledge 2/2/2" hasn't worked, and continues to not work. This mess has tried to be resolved with this mentality multiple times, and all the focus on rewarding people for 2/2/2 continues to fail in resolving it. It continues to cost players. It continues to grow negative sentiment - that sentiment carries beyond the confines of RoR too.

"If you always do what you've always done, then you'll always get what you've always got".

[Omegus]

Lots of points on what you want this game to be like but I think most of these design choices are big contributing factors to games downfall and population bleed happening in this game

From experience from PUG to organised, the reasons I typically see people quit are:

1) PUGs: the horrific power loss at rank 40 compared to BIS. This is in both ORvR and scenarios. I personally believe there needs to be overall power squish (nor removal, just squish). You get stomped everywhere, even in dungeons lol.

2) PUGs: Due to the above power gap issues, exclusion from almost all forms of organised content whether it's getting into a dungeon run, a scenario group or an ORvR warband.

3) Organised: leaders (either guild or warband or even or whatever) becoming disillusioned or bored with the project for one reason or another - typically ORvR related - and quitting, which usually causes whomever was following them to also stop playing. If that one person who regularly runs Chapter 22 PUG warbands gets fed up with Chapter 22 bugs/etc and stops running them then tens - or potentially hundreds - of players over time end up losing access to that content as leaders are much rarer than followers. Guild leader stops? Guild might disband and a bunch of people lose their social group and stop playing (seen that one happen way too many times before).

The game had it's highest population numbers during 2020 lockdown for 2 reasons: 1) a huge influx of new players finding out about the game ("Peonwave"). 2) cities launched and were incredibly competitive with new loot which brought a load of vets back. Guild numbers swelled up, entirely new guilds were formed, city numbers were sky high, etc.

Eventually Peonwave reached tier 4 and got smashed everywhere, and the premades farmed cities to death and ran out of content so started dropping off or tried to gear up their 5th alt in Sovereign and at that point the competition had mostly died down. And of course, people had to start going back to work but that doesn't account for the prime-time drop-offs as well. #1, #2 and #3 above. Power gap too big, PUGs excluded from the sweaty content, leaders got bored.

Personally, I am happy if the game has a smaller organised playerbase compared to a larger disorganised one. I would much rather see work put into promoting organisation and fixing the barriers that hinder people trying to engage with others rather than mechanics put in place based around ensuring people do not have to organise themselves and take responsibility for maximising their odds of success.

[Omegus]

I don't think balance is what will make people play or be retained - no one really cares how perfectly balanced a game is, only that it's fun. Imbalance can impact fun, but balance doesn't lead to fun.

Imbalance killed off a huge part of WAR's early population on the Mythic servers, and new players absolutely will quit if it turns out their first/main class they rolled is trash in general or not wanted for any groups. Vets who already have multiple chars can switch between the meta. Typically this is anyone who picked the "wrong" DPS class.

[GONDOR]

I don't think balance is what will make people play or be retained - no one really cares how perfectly balanced a game is, only that it's fun. Imbalance can impact fun, but balance doesn't lead to fun.

Imbalance killed off a huge part of WAR's early population on the Mythic servers, and new players absolutely will quit if it turns out their first/main class they rolled is trash in general or not wanted for any groups. Vets who already have multiple chars can switch between the meta. Typically this is anyone who picked the "wrong" DPS class.

Correct - but the point is imbalance takes away from the fun, and balance doesn't add to it. If it's badly balanced, then people don't have fun, but it can be balanced and unfun to play - that still costs players.

Also meta is also not always a result of (im)balance, and this issue is still present on RoR (hello engineers).