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Matchmaking 3.0 - What, When, Why & How


Jakomaru
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Sup. I'm going to tell you what my idea of Matchmaking 3.0 is, when I think that this concept became necessary, why I think that it is necessary, and how it should be implemented. Like all of my ideas (before my forum activity history was mysteriously deleted), this is revolutionary and legendary.

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Introduction:

Matchmaking 3.0 is a complete upgrade from the current matchmaking system. The current system simply doesn't work for the game anymore. it is mostly chaotic and unpredictable, especially with random matchmaking. An upgrade of this magnitude became necessary years ago. The system hasn't changed much from back when warframe was a completely different game.

The current matchmaking system bottlenecks the game. It prevents us players from playing the game the way that we want to play. This is because we barely have any control over it.

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Matchmaking 3.0:

(FYI, these quote blocks would be unnecessary if i could simply change the size of my font. is DE scared that people will type in bigger font sizes?).

The theme of matchmaking 3.0 needs to be absolute control. Warframe is becoming the type of game that necessitates players deciding how they want to play. There are a wide variety of missions presented to the player in this game, as well as a wide variety of options to tackle these missions. It only makes sense that part of the player's play style depends on the matchmaking.

Hosting:

Not all players are suited to be hosts. Therefore, players should have the option to choose whether they can be the host or not.

players with really bad connections cannot launch the squad as the host (no one can play with 200+ ping anyway). the player with a bad connection can create a squad, but if they want to launch the squad solo they will be notified that it will be a solo squad. In which case, the squad will immediately switch to solo mode and other players cannot join.
if other players join the squad before it is launched, an automatic host migration will occur during the match loading stage so that the player who has the best connection in the squad is the squad leader.

Players who are hosts in random matchmaking should be considered "Squad Leader", a superficial title for identification purposes. The squad leader will have some sort of visual indication on their icon that let's the squad know they are hosting.
This will be beneficial for players who want to avoid host migrations when the current host is leaving the squad.

When a squad is on mission, the squad leader should have the option to give another player the squad leader position based on who has the best connection, according to the system. The player in question will have to give consent to becoming the squad leader.

Random Matchmaking:

This is the most popular way to play the game, and for good reason. You launch the game, you choose a mission, and it sends you in with a team. the problem is that players are rarely matched with each other to compliment their play style or their arsenal. it is all based on luck. Random matchmaking should only mean being paired with random players rather than invited players.

Warframe Duplicates:

Whenever the player is launching a mission to join a new or existing squad, give them the option not to be matched in a squad with duplicate frames. this will give the player more control over their own playing experience.
of course, a disclaimer that duplicate frames might join the squad after they join should be added.

Warframe offers variety, but warframe doesn't give players the option to have variety in random matchmaking. Not everyone wants to join a squad where two or more squad mates are doing the same exact thing (for example two to four trinities trying to cast EV on the same targets).

Squad Invite Notification:

The current squad invite notification is atrocious and should be removed from the game immediately. it was made for a completely different game (old warframe). It works for getting the player's attention, but no one wants to be constantly bombarded by that thing, especially when it comes to random invites.

When the player receives a squad invite, it should appear as a small notification on their screen. a blinking circle or whatever. When they enter the escape menu, there is a button that they can click to open and show a list of their squad invites and then interact with them. If the squad is full or closed, the invite is no longer valid and disappears automatically.
This is massively brilliant.

Random Squads:

The default method for random matchmaking should be that the player will either host a squad, or join a squad. One of the main problems is that the player does not have a choice.

When a player selects a node, they should be given the option to create a random squad, create a custom squad, or to join a squad. If the player clicks to create a squad, they will become the squad leader (host) of a new squad. If the player clicks to join a squad, they will enter a queue to join a new or existing squad.

A new squad is a squad that has not launched its mission. An existing squad is a squad that has launched its mission.
If the player joins a new squad, they will be able to change their arsenal before the squad launches.

Players should be given a small interface containing options for random matchmaking. Options such as:

  • Default Join: will let the player select the default priority for joining a random squad, between a new squad and an existing squad, or they can select for it to be completely random. This option will not prevent them from joining either new or existing squads, but simply sets a preference for where the system should place them if the option is available.

Random Squad Kicking:

Kicking players out of a random squad should always should utilize the same system that prevents afk players from gaining more affinity when they have been afk for a while. Kicking a player will always be a majority vote system requiring a full squad, and 3 votes in favor. Only players who have been afk and are unable to gain shared affinity can be voted to be kicked from the squad.

If a kick vote is successful, the player in question will be given a 10 second warning. If they remain afk for the 10 seconds, they get kicked.

Custom Squads:

Why should players endure the primitive tediosity of the recruit channel when we can have custom squads?

When a player enters the navigation system or selects a node, they will be given the option to create a custom squad. They will also be given the option to create a custom squad from the recruit chat channel. The custom squad leader has the option to only allow friends and/or clan members and/or alliance members to join their custom squad, and they can send out invites accordingly.

The custom squad leader squad leader is required to give the squad a title that it will be identified by. The custom squad title will let the players know what the squad is for (for example "Orokin Cell Farming", "(insert relic) radshare"). The custom squad title will have a character limit of 40.
The squad leader has the option to give the custom squad a description (not required). The custom squad description will allow the squad leader to explain details of what is required for the squad. The description will be visible when a player is interacting with the custom squad invite/notification/panel. The description will have a character limit of 200.

The squad leader will have the option to open their list of friends and clan members and alliance members to manually send out invites. They can also broadcast the title of the custom squad and their IGN to the recruit channel as a link for players to interact with.

When a player is creating a custom squad, if the system detects that there are open squads of the same type, it will give the player the option to instead join the open squad.

If the squad leader leaves the custom squad, the squad is dissolved (no host migration). If the mission is about to launch but a player leaves, the launch will be cancelled and the squad leader will receive the option to keep the custom squad open or invite only.

When a custom squad successfully launches, it will be automatically switched to invite only. If a player leaves early on after the squad launches, the squad leader can choose to invite players from his clan/alliance/friends, or broadcast an open invitation to the recruit channel.
When a player joins a custom squad that has already launched, they don't immediately launch into the mission with the rest of the squad. They remain in their orbiter, or dojo, or cetus, wherever they are. This will give them the option to talk to their squad and adjust their arsenal before clicking to join the match.

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There will be an interface for players who are searching for a custom squad. The custom squad title and the squad leader IGN will be main identifiers for the custom squad on this interface as well. The squad description will be partially displayed depending on the length, and the player has the option to open the full description.
When the player is browsing the interface for custom squads, there is a search bar for the player to search for custom squads based on the title. The search will filter out custom squads leaving only the squads that have the search terms.

Custom squads also integrates with my squad invite notification feature. When a player opens their list of squad invites, there will be a section for custom squads, also displaying the title and partial description.

Custom Squad Hosting:

Custom squad hosting will work differently than random squad hosting. When it comes to random squads, the host and squad leader are one in the same. When it comes to custom squads, the host and squad leader can be different people.

The custom squad leader will always be the player who creates the squad. If the squad leader has a bad connection, there will be an automatic host migration during the match loading stage in which the player with the best connection will become the host, while the squad leader remains the same.

Custom Squad Kicking:

Before the custom squad mission launches, the squad leader will have complete control to kick players from the squad. After the custom squad launches, the same afk kicking system used for random squads will apply, based on a majority vote and requiting a full squad.

Warframe Hosting:

Another option is for DE to build good servers around the world for players to be hosted on their servers. in which case, throw away everything that i said about player hosting specifically, and keep everything else the same.

Edited by Jakomaru
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1 hour ago, Jakomaru said:

Whenever the player is launching a mission, give them the option to exclude up to 10 warframes from being matched with them. The selection will be exclusive to that instance to help aid against abuse of this feature.
Also give the player the option to prevent duplicate frames joining the squad.

Hope you're happy stopping Limbo, Volt, and Saryn minimum from playing the game.

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2 hours ago, peterc3 said:

No. This won't happen and I am 1000% confident in saying that.

whether it actually happens or not is indeed out of my hands, but i believe that it is a beneficial idea.

2 hours ago, Atsia said:

Hope you're happy stopping Limbo, Volt, and Saryn minimum from playing the game.

that won't happen. a lot of players (myself included) will regularly exclude a lot of nuke frames from the game and frames that can potentially be used to grief, but there are many cases where those warframes are genuinely beneficial.

worst case scenario, those warframes will rarely be used in random matchmaking. that is not a big deal. there are currently many frames that are barely used. it's mainly a difference of players choosing not to use certain frames vs players choosing not to have certain frames on their squad. in both cases the player is exercising control over how they experience the game.

the main point is giving players more options.

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Hosts:
I agree it will be nice to have option to "never host".
Packet drops, ping spikes, slow PC, Strict NAT problems.

When host have poor connection, it may have bugs. One bug is being stuck in relic reward selection, until host migration: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1110296-slow-hostserver-network-relic-reward-timer-start-too-early-then-never-end-mission-until-host-migration-video/

Matchmaking:
Divide by about 200 missions, invasions, fissures, sorties, Kuva siphons, syndicates, and bounties.
Divide by 4 platforms (PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch).
Limited by ping limit when joining squads.
If Exclude warframe is a thing, this can limit to almost no players found or only 2 players in squad if lucky.

I rather be able to see other player's equipped warframe and weapons with an option for me to change loadouts for about 10 or more seconds, while in a middle of loading screens.

Invites:
This gets worst with game controller on PC platform. The invite popped up when trying to exit menu, and in 0.1 seconds later, closes and cancels the invites. Who invited me?

I believe video game consoles use their own invite on their systems which may be better.

Custom Squads:
Recruitment chat will only get more crowded as more missions get added on, especially content that do not have matchmaking like Derelict vault runs and Garuda locator share.

 

There are problems with existing matchmaking.
Public "offline" and pause bug that still happens to me. https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1037427-no-matchmaking-no-squad-chat-and-pause-in-public/

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@Jakomaru thanks for this wonderful post, although I don't agree with everything I agree with most.

IMHO these changes would have a tremendous impact in the overall quality of life of Warframe as a game, no matter what you are doing you are using this multiple times a day!!!

Hosts:
There is already a visual indication the Warframe icon with number 1 is always the host
There is an option in settings Auto, Desktop, Laptop (defaults to Auto) in which bad connections should choose Laptop and good connections should choose Desktop.

I'm not sure how much setting to Desktop/Laptop manually affects you being the host or not I agree this should be greatly improved.

Matchmaking:
Great I'll never see a Limbo again and it will be too soon, I could say sarcasm but it's not.
That said I don't agree with this, it's not the frame it's the person playing it, invite your friends.

"I rather be able to see other player's equipped warframe and weapons with an option for me to change loadouts for about 10 or more seconds, while in a middle of loading screens." NOW with this I agree 1000%

Invite Notification:
I could say this is the worst implementation I've ever seen since dual core became the norm but that would be mean.

Should be improved indeed your suggestions are great.

Custom Squads:
1000% Agreed, sign me up on that today!

 

 

Edited by ciTiger
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Eh. Not bad, but seems like a lot of work just to find no players. Playing public I often end up alone anyway because so few people are playing the particular node/mission. There are mechanical changes that could be made to matchmaking behind the scenes that would greatly improve it, I'm just not sure this level of customizability is warranted, especially if it reduces chances of finding a match.

Now, adding a message to an invite and having the invites persist in, say, a different tab to avoid accidentally declining, that sounds good.

The custom squads sound good as an extension of recruiting chat, but not matchmaking. Being able to browse advertised radshare or farming squads would be nice, but having separate settings that filter by selected mission is too much. How do you tell the game you're going to farm a specific toroid and not thermia fractures, other than in squad/lobby title? With the "required relic" part, how do you do random radshare for ducat farming? 

My condensed version would be:

-Mechanical upgrades to improve choice of host behind the scenes.

-Ditch Warframe exclusion, add option to change or adjust loadouts while the game is loading.

-Your invite notification idea is great and it's a shame the old system hasn't been improved yet.

-The create random squad feature guarantees you're the host and can be used for trolling. Either with terrible connection quality or forcing host migrations on people for fun. It's already a thing, kind of, no need to exacerbate the issue.

-Forget the locking in mission for custom squads, just make them have a title and, if public, be searchable in some interface. It'd be an extension of the recruiting chat, but the host/leader has control over kicking before start and delaying start if someone hasn't picked the right gear/relic/whatever. Allowing for all possible purposes of a custom squad to be quantified and locked in is an ungodly amount of dev work.

 

My take on "Custom Squad/Lobby":

Select title, like "Axi A6 radshare" or "calda toroid farm". Set to public(listed), private(invite only, unlisted), or friends only(listed for friends/clan). Either look at recruiting chat for LFs, advertise in recruiting, or wait for people to find your listed squad in the list. From there, it works just like now, but with your kicking rules. Host is only one who can force the start, other players only indicate "ready". It's on the host to check everyone has the right gear/relic. To that, equipped dragon keys and relics should be clearly indicated in the squad UI. You can search for custom squads by title, description isn't really necessary. "Casual tridolon 2x" or "thumper doma farm" is pretty self-explanatory. Previewing the squad before joining would be nice but not essential, if you end up with 4 nekroses you can argue in chat about who gets to change to what.

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On 2019-11-14 at 4:30 PM, Jakomaru said:

Kicking players out of a random squad should always use a majority voting system, and should only be possible when 4 players are on the squad. Three players on the squad need to vote in favor to kick someone off of the squad. If a player leaves the squad, all votes are reset.

God please no kick system, this could, and most likely would, be abused.
I'd rather deal with a afk leech or drag along that one player who has no idea what is going on than join a squad get kicked because I'm playing a frame they don't like.

Say you join a random squad as a limbo and say yer extremely good at playing limbo, I'm not, but because you are a limbo and limbo gets a bad rap, for obvious reasons, then you immediately get kicked from the squad without question because you are a limbo.

If you don't want specific frames or players to join you then use recruit chat, don't complain about that 1 guy/girl because they're not doing what you want, that is the nature of random public groups.

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On 2019-11-19 at 8:49 AM, GruntBlender said:

Eh. Not bad, but seems like a lot of work just to find no players. Playing public I often end up alone anyway because so few people are playing the particular node/mission. There are mechanical changes that could be made to matchmaking behind the scenes that would greatly improve it, I'm just not sure this level of customizability is warranted, especially if it reduces chances of finding a match.

Now, adding a message to an invite and having the invites persist in, say, a different tab to avoid accidentally declining, that sounds good.

i assume that you were mainly talking about the warframe exclusion feature. i took the time to think through every single scenario in which that feature can be used and decided that i was wrong about that feature being a good idea. it would only be a good idea in an ideal world. but players who are joining a new or existing squad should have the option to avoid being matched in a squad that has duplicate frames on it, even if a duplicate frame happens to join the squad after they do.
ultimately it is a feature that players need to opt into, so it does not count as additional customizability unless the player actually decides to use it, in which case the player is looking for something more specific that requires this feature.

my random squads system will ensure that players are matched together because the game will continue to attempt matching players together before the squad launches until the squad is either full, or the squad leader manually launches the squad.

you are right that this feature can be used for trolling. the best option is to add ways to prevent or discourage trolling.
we can make it so that players with really bad connections cannot launch the squad as a host (no one can play with 200+ ping anyway). the player with a bad connection can create a squad, but if they want to launch the squad solo they will be notified that it will be a solo squad. if other players join the squad before it is launched, an automatic host migration will occur during the match loading stage so that the player who has the best connection in the squad is the squad leader.

Spoiler

there are many systems and features in this game that can be used for trolling. players going afk while holding the mobile defense key, players using limbo's cataclysm, players using loki's switch teleport, etc. instead of flat out removing these things, DE made adjustments to help prevent and discourage trolling.

 

On 2019-11-19 at 8:49 AM, GruntBlender said:

The custom squads sound good as an extension of recruiting chat, but not matchmaking. Being able to browse advertised radshare or farming squads would be nice, but having separate settings that filter by selected mission is too much. How do you tell the game you're going to farm a specific toroid and not thermia fractures, other than in squad/lobby title? With the "required relic" part, how do you do random radshare for ducat farming? 

My condensed version would be:

-Mechanical upgrades to improve choice of host behind the scenes.

-Ditch Warframe exclusion, add option to change or adjust loadouts while the game is loading.

-Your invite notification idea is great and it's a shame the old system hasn't been improved yet.

-The create random squad feature guarantees you're the host and can be used for trolling. Either with terrible connection quality or forcing host migrations on people for fun. It's already a thing, kind of, no need to exacerbate the issue.

-Forget the locking in mission for custom squads, just make them have a title and, if public, be searchable in some interface. It'd be an extension of the recruiting chat, but the host/leader has control over kicking before start and delaying start if someone hasn't picked the right gear/relic/whatever. Allowing for all possible purposes of a custom squad to be quantified and locked in is an ungodly amount of dev work.

 

My take on "Custom Squad/Lobby":

Select title, like "Axi A6 radshare" or "calda toroid farm". Set to public(listed), private(invite only, unlisted), or friends only(listed for friends/clan). Either look at recruiting chat for LFs, advertise in recruiting, or wait for people to find your listed squad in the list. From there, it works just like now, but with your kicking rules. Host is only one who can force the start, other players only indicate "ready". It's on the host to check everyone has the right gear/relic. To that, equipped dragon keys and relics should be clearly indicated in the squad UI. You can search for custom squads by title, description isn't really necessary. "Casual tridolon 2x" or "thumper doma farm" is pretty self-explanatory. Previewing the squad before joining would be nice but not essential, if you end up with 4 nekroses you can argue in chat about who gets to change to what.

 

the recruit chat is technically part of matchmaking. what i meant is that players shouldn't need to go through the trouble of switching tabs just to make a block of text to copy so that they can spam paste it in the recruit chat just to find or create a group.
i think i get the gist of what you mean, but i think that it's better to view the recruit chat as an extension to custom squads rather than the other way around.

you make a good point about the filter settings for different nodes.
i'll modify it so that the player can create a custom squad and is required give the squad a title which can represent what the squad is about, and has the option to give the squad a description for additional details. the player also has the option to lock the squad into a node, but is not required. locking the squad into a node will simply allow squad mates to check when they are ready or select their relics ahead of time.

the custom squad title and the IGN of the squad leader will be used to identify the squad. for example if i create a custom squad i can title it "Axi S38 radshare". all players who are browsing the custom squads or receive a notification or advertisement for the custom squad will be able to see the title of the squad and the squad leader.

there will be an option for the squad leader to advertise their custom squad, which will post the custom squad title and squad leader in the recruit chat as a link for players to interact with.
this way the recruit chat can still be used without players having to spam there directly for matchmaking. but i guess they can still do it if they want to.

just to make it clear, my previous warframe exclusion system was never intended for custom squads. only random matchmaking.

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On 2019-11-20 at 6:55 PM, GentlePuppet said:

God please no kick system, this could, and most likely would, be abused.
I'd rather deal with a afk leech or drag along that one player who has no idea what is going on than join a squad get kicked because I'm playing a frame they don't like.

Say you join a random squad as a limbo and say yer extremely good at playing limbo, I'm not, but because you are a limbo and limbo gets a bad rap, for obvious reasons, then you immediately get kicked from the squad without question because you are a limbo.

If you don't want specific frames or players to join you then use recruit chat, don't complain about that 1 guy/girl because they're not doing what you want, that is the nature of random public groups.

you made a good point. i reconsidered my position about the kicking system and made the appropriate changes.

my new kicking system is based on the afk system that prevents the player from gaining affinity. only those afk players are able to be vote kicked, and it has to be a majority vote of 3. this does not apply to players who are dead.

if a vote is successful, the player will be given a 10 second warning. if they remain afk, they get kicked.

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