[How to truly make people enjoy conclave] A Ranking System.

[ZaneCyber]

You, tennos, often took breaks from slaughtering Corpus, Grineer, Infested and the occasional sentient by fighting in sportmanship matches against your fellow Tenno.

Unfortunately, as you join a game, be it Anhilation, Lunaro, or even Cephalon captures, it is very common to find one player, or two of them, overtaking all the others in his or her skills, as such as you find yourself at 3vs3 players with one players having scored 30 goals in Lunaro, while the other team is powerless to stop it, and the teammates of such players having scored nothing.

While trying to get my clanmmates to try out PvP, I had always the same answers of such gaps of skills being unfun for them.

This is easily fixed though, and a simple question : Why don't we have a ranking system?. Something allowing people of the same or arround the same rank in skills to evolve alongsides each others? The easy answer would be that there is not enough PvP players to do this and as such, matchmaking would be horrendous. I disgress however : This could very well be conclave's new light in bringing in more players, because Warframe has the potentiel to be an incredible PvP game. There is enough diversity from Frames to Weapons to make this even better!

In time, tutorials could be made with the assistance of experimented PvP players for these who wants to play it.

A special quest introducing conclave to players never having tried it would be an awesome boon.

Everything though, to avoid PvP burnout would be tied to the inexistent currently, and I hope in the future existant, Ranking System.

Because PvP is the answer for players burnt out from general PvE.

What are your thoughts? Feel free to express yourselves, fellow Tennos.

[Kontrollo]

All of my yes to a proper ranking system.

This has been suggested before but it's worth repeating! It's still one of the fundamental problems of the Conclave to this day.

No one really likes losing, and the most intense battles are those where you're neck-and-neck with your opponents.

 

[Nazrethim]

So far we have Recruit Conditioning, which prevents players rank 1-2 from being matched with players rank 3-4 so they can learn the game and get a few mods before entering the high rank matches. The option just need to be made clear, and by clear I mean it should be in the Conclave console and not buried in the options menu. If you decided to rush to rank 4 to get the syadanna/armor/skins/whatever, welp, you knew what you were getting into :P

[Relentless.Zen]

Yep PvP just makes sense if you play with and against players with about the same skill as yourself. It isnt fun joining a game like this:

11 minutes ago, ZaneCyber said:

Unfortunately, as you join a game, be it Anhilation, Lunaro, or even Cephalon captures, it is very common to find one player, or two of them, overtaking all the others in his or her skills, as such as you find yourself at 3vs3 players with one players having scored 30 goals in Lunaro, while the other team is powerless to stop it, and the teammates of such players having scored nothing.

So yes: make a ranking system and a better matchmaking. It would be more motivating than it is now

[ZaneCyber]

7 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

So far we have Recruit Conditioning, which prevents players rank 1-2 from being matched with players rank 3-4 so they can learn the game and get a few mods before entering the high rank matches. The option just need to be made clear, and by clear I mean it should be in the Conclave console and not buried in the options menu. If you decided to rush to rank 4 to get the syadanna/armor/skins/whatever, welp, you knew what you were getting into :P

Issue is, all of what was exposed, is valid for Rank 5. At max rank, such disrepancies exist that without Ranking, match aren't the neck to neck improving experience it was made to be, but a punishment for most players. As is, I can't get anyone from clan, or friendlist to join PvP for "Fun".

As @-S-O-Kranker Said, a ranking system and better matchmaking would turn this arround into something you can improve in by matching you against similarly skilled opponents.

[Mutt2679]

The biggest problem with conclave that I see with my clan, is only 3 or 4 of us in my clan are interested in conclave. Yes, I know there are people that do like it, but this game is Mostly PVE. That's what most of the tenno get into it for.  Conclave is a small corner of the game mostly their to goof around when you don't have anything better to do. I've never considered it "end game" content. Those that do take it serious are the guys who are destroying the other team. 

I look at other PVE games, and they all have the same(ish) system. Higher tier guys and higher skill guys will have a huge advantage. The good thing about going against people that good, is it forces you to learn quickly. You'll always get better faster playing against people that are better.

I do agree with you. Some kind of better matchmaking system would be nice. The neck to neck games are always funner then getting destroyed or destroying the other team.

That being said, hit me up if you want someone to practice with you. I'm down to give you some pointers I've learned, as well as learn from you. 

[ZaneCyber]

5 minutes ago, Mutt2679 said:

The biggest problem with conclave that I see with my clan, is only 3 or 4 of us in my clan are interested in conclave. Yes, I know there are people that do like it, but this game is Mostly PVE. That's what most of the tenno get into it for.  Conclave is a small corner of the game mostly their to goof around when you don't have anything better to do. I've never considered it "end game" content. Those that do take it serious are the guys who are destroying the other team. 

I look at other PVE games, and they all have the same(ish) system. Higher tier guys and higher skill guys will have a huge advantage. The good thing about going against people that good, is it forces you to learn quickly. You'll always get better faster playing against people that are better.

I do agree with you. Some kind of better matchmaking system would be nice. The neck to neck games are always funner then getting destroyed or destroying the other team.

That being said, hit me up if you want someone to practice with you. I'm down to give you some pointers I've learned, as well as learn from you. 

I will certainly take you up on that offer of practicing as I really do like conclave ;)

That's the place Conclave is in currently, but it could be so much more with only a ranking system and some promotion, it could be that ONE option other than PvE It's intended to be (Hence why the three starting frames are buyable with conclave standing).

Ranking system, for the win.

[-dicht.ThanksFrost-]

The ranking system wont solve anything. The population is not high enough to make it work. Even now (excluding lunaro) there's usually one play list active at the time. Its not a bad idea, but we need a more substantial player base before we get into that stuff.

Edited July 2, 2016 by Eureka.seveN

[DeadlyBard676]

I remember DE stating in a devstream once (don't remember which) that they wouldn't add rankings to conclave.

[ZaneCyber]

9 hours ago, Eureka.seveN said:

The ranking system wont solve anything. The population is not high enough to make it work. Even now (excluding lunaro) there's usually one play list active at the time. Its not a bad idea, but we need a more substantial player base before we get into that stuff.

This is the whole Vicious Circle of it.

Without Ranking System, people don't even touch PvP past their initial experience. Making fewer PvP players, hence not seing the need of a Ranking System.

Ranking doesn't need to be a visible number, just make it an invisible value used when matchmaking based on current number of Kills:Death ratio, passes/score ratio, etc. As such it wouldn't be used as a discrimination against players which could bleed out in PvE, since I'm almost sure this is what they are trying to avoid, like with the old "Conclave Points" we had in our loadout.

Edited July 2, 2016 by ZaneCyber

[ZaneCyber]

3 hours ago, KiryuKusakabe said:

I remember DE stating in a devstream once (don't remember which) that they wouldn't add rankings to conclave.

This is the whole Vicious Circle of it.

Without Ranking System, people don't even touch PvP past their initial experience. Making fewer PvP players, hence not seing the need of a Ranking System.

9 hours ago, Eureka.seveN said:

The ranking system wont solve anything. The population is not high enough to make it work. Even now (excluding lunaro) there's usually one play list active at the time. Its not a bad idea, but we need a more substantial player base before we get into that stuff.

 

Ranking doesn't need to be a visible number, just make it an invisible value used when matchmaking based on current number of Kills:Death ratio, passes/score ratio, etc. As such it wouldn't be used as a discrimination against players which could bleed out in PvE, since I'm almost sure this is what they are trying to avoid, like with the old "Conclave Points" we had in our loadout.

Edit : Somehow, my formatting posted and it posted two posts... How?Why?What?

Edited July 2, 2016 by ZaneCyber

[Kontrollo]

Where I'm playing there are usually several lobbies open at least for Annihilation. (We just need a minigame in the TA waiting screen for the impatient ones *wink* *nudge*.)

ELO has been suggested before and there are other algorithms for this kind of thing. And it shouldn't be hard to implement a ranking system in a "soft" way.

If the - let's say - ELO of an existing lobby is too high/low for a player, have them open a new one, or let them wait some extra amount of time to find a more suitable game first.

Another way would be to tie waiting time to the threshold of what players can be grouped together. The more time you wait, the bigger the chance to be put in any lobby with open slots, no matter the ELO difference.

Yet another way (but potentially problematic) would be to just let players handle it manually. Have a setting like Recruit Conditioning somewhere and tie it to experience/standing gain. If think you're good enough to keep up with the regulars, you could set it to the highest rank yourself. It'd be high risk, high reward. A problem with that would be those who are clearly too good for the lower ranks, though (those who just like to go pub stomping). So there would have to be a way to manage that, as well. Maybe with a vote putting them into a higher tier, with downgrading locked for a certain time.

[ZaneCyber]

1 hour ago, Kontrollo said:

Where I'm playing there are usually several lobbies open at least for Annihilation. (We just need a minigame in the TA waiting screen for the impatient ones *wink* *nudge*.)

ELO has been suggested before and there are other algorithms for this kind of thing. And it shouldn't be hard to implement a ranking system in a "soft" way.

If the - let's say - ELO of an existing lobby is too high/low for a player, have them open a new one, or let them wait some extra amount of time to find a more suitable game first.

Another way would be to tie waiting time to the threshold of what players can be grouped together. The more time you wait, the bigger the chance to be put in any lobby with open slots, no matter the ELO difference.

Yet another way (but potentially problematic) would be to just let players handle it manually. Have a setting like Recruit Conditioning somewhere and tie it to experience/standing gain. If think you're good enough to keep up with the regulars, you could set it to the highest rank yourself. It'd be high risk, high reward. A problem with that would be those who are clearly too good for the lower ranks, though (those who just like to go pub stomping). So there would have to be a way to manage that, as well. Maybe with a vote putting them into a higher tier, with downgrading locked for a certain time.

That would work very well, ELO has already been done to great success in Pokemon of all things.

[bernad2218]

IF ONLY I HAD TIME, FORGIVE ME FELLOW TENNOS

[Tails-san]

19 hours ago, Nazrethim said:

So far we have Recruit Conditioning, which prevents players rank 1-2 from being matched with players rank 3-4 so they can learn the game and get a few mods before entering the high rank matches. The option just need to be made clear, and by clear I mean it should be in the Conclave console and not buried in the options menu. If you decided to rush to rank 4 to get the syadanna/armor/skins/whatever, welp, you knew what you were getting into :P

As someone who kinda rushed the ranks for cosmetics purposes, I find you actually really DON'T know what you're getting into. The general skill gap between recruit conditioning and regular is quite large. For ranks 1-2, I was destroying the opposition, I hit rank 3, and started getting completely wrecked most of the time, and started having a lot less fun with it, which in turn meant I wanted to try to rush it even harder, so I could get the skins and be done with it, thus not buying any mods with my standing.

[-dicht.ThanksFrost-]

4 hours ago, ZaneCyber said:

This is the whole Vicious Circle of it.

Without Ranking System, people don't even touch PvP past their initial experience. Making fewer PvP players, hence not seing the need of a Ranking System.

Ranking doesn't need to be a visible number, just make it an invisible value used when matchmaking based on current number of Kills:Death ratio, passes/score ratio, etc. As such it wouldn't be used as a discrimination against players which could bleed out in PvE, since I'm almost sure this is what they are trying to avoid, like with the old "Conclave Points" we had in our loadout.

You are looking at the ends. The game mode has to actually be desirable for a large chunk of the player base BEFORE we can even think about adding these systems. This not a "chicken or the egg" scenario. You first need a substantial amount of people who are genuinely interested in PvP first before segregating them into skill groups, you need to make a mode that the warframe player base will enjoy before we get there.

You make a vaild point, but it only applies if Conclave's gameplay is appeasing/enjoyable enough for the player base so that enough of them actually take interest. Which based on my challenge grinding experiences these past two weeks is not entirely the case.

3 hours ago, Kontrollo said:

Where I'm playing there are usually several lobbies open at least for Annihilation. (We just need a minigame in the TA waiting screen for the impatient ones *wink* *nudge*.)

June 1st 2016, Friday Night (Canada Day) 11:00 PM EST. Matchmaking Limit: "No-Limit"

No minigame is going to keep me interested for that long. If conclave was so great these modes should be at least slightly populated.

[Nazrethim]

5 hours ago, Tails-san said:

As someone who kinda rushed the ranks for cosmetics purposes, I find you actually really DON'T know what you're getting into. The general skill gap between recruit conditioning and regular is quite large. For ranks 1-2, I was destroying the opposition, I hit rank 3, and started getting completely wrecked most of the time, and started having a lot less fun with it, which in turn meant I wanted to try to rush it even harder, so I could get the skins and be done with it, thus not buying any mods with my standing.

I know the current system is not perfect, but until the Conclave playerbase is bigger new systems are unlikely to be implemented, specially now that DE is working on Specters of the Rail and War Within, so at best we may get a few hotfixes for Conclave stuff for the time being. The current Recruit Conditioning system is workable, but it needs to be made clear, with the option right in the conclave console and a warning message in the 2>3 advance so players KNOW what they are getting into.

[Zmigi]

Trying to play some conclave and i saw that high ranking conclave players "plays" who will be less time on the ground... JUMPING all the TIME, ofcourse not to being hit, but is this what realy conclave should look like ?- full moded rabbits jumping non stop and win the one who will hit ocasonaly the other ?No,Please, make this PVP woth the name of Tennos.

Not to mention that having mods which increase the mobility,damage etc.How can one have fun in that when u cant hit fast non stop jumping Tenno, well mybe sometimes when someone else that almoust killed him, u have one lucky shot. No thanks.

In my opinion in conclave should be some stamina or something that limit that non stop speed jumping... Arent mods making enough diference already ? - at least that would balance something to be more fun.

[Phasedragon]

2 hours ago, Zmigi said:

Trying to play some conclave and i saw that high ranking conclave players "plays" who will be less time on the ground... JUMPING all the TIME, ofcourse not to being hit, but is this what realy conclave should look like ?- full moded rabbits jumping non stop and win the one who will hit ocasonaly the other ?No,Please, make this PVP woth the name of Tennos.

Not to mention that having mods which increase the mobility,damage etc.How can one have fun in that when u cant hit fast non stop jumping Tenno, well mybe sometimes when someone else that almoust killed him, u have one lucky shot. No thanks.

In my opinion in conclave should be some stamina or something that limit that non stop speed jumping... Arent mods making enough diference already ? - at least that would balance something to be more fun.

I'll hold off on arguing whether or not the fast playstyle is good or not, but I can tell you right now that mods don't make the difference. it's all about personal skill and experience, and mods are a relatively small part of the process in determining how good a player performs. A fast frame in bad hands is still bad, but a slow frame in good hands can still have potential. Even then, mods don't bring mobility that much higher than base, and it's more than possible to play completely unmodded (with the exception of some "mandatory" mods which are designed for specific weapons).

Edited July 3, 2016 by Phasedragon

[Kontrollo]

On 2.7.2016 at 6:49 PM, Eureka.seveN said:

June 1st 2016, Friday Night (Canada Day) 11:00 PM EST. Matchmaking Limit: "No-Limit"

No minigame is going to keep me interested for that long. If conclave was so great these modes should be at least slightly populated.

Are you sure you didn't set your region to Oceania? ;) (Yes, I saw)

Might want to head over to Europe then. During the afternoon and evening, I don't have much trouble getting into games. Also, how about hosting yourself?

[-dicht.ThanksFrost-]

1 hour ago, Kontrollo said:

Are you sure you didn't set your region to Oceania? ;) (Yes, I saw)

Might want to head over to Europe then. During the afternoon and evening, I don't have much trouble getting into games. Also, how about hosting yourself?

Still doesn't justify it. The mode was empty on a national holiday at night. Switching region is just a band aid solution.

Edited July 6, 2016 by Eureka.seveN

[Pythadragon]

1 hour ago, Eureka.seveN said:

Still doesn't justify it. The mode was empty on a national holiday at night. Switching region is just a band aid solution.

I think the 4th of July is a bad example. No school/work for some, but they're out watching fireworks and having a bbq. Not pvp.

[Kontrollo]

1 hour ago, Eureka.seveN said:

Still doesn't justify it. The mode was empty on a national holiday at night. Switching region is just a band aid solution.

By the way, are we actually talking about the implementation of a ranking system or that silly minigame proposal? Because if the latter, that was mostly a joke.

If the former, I, myself, wouldn't base a decision on some anecdotal evidence, where you failed to join a session in one of 8 possible slots (RC included) in a specific region.

It's true that the population isn't all that big, but a (soft) ranking system could make the modes more enjoyable with as few as two concurrent sessions per slot.

 

43 minutes ago, Pythadragon said:

I think the 4th of July is a bad example. No school/work for some, but they're out watching fireworks and having a bbq. Not pvp.

Also this, although I guess the US probably don't care all that much about Canada Day. ^^

[Pythadragon]

 

5 minutes ago, Kontrollo said:

Also this, although I guess the US probably don't care all that much about Canada Day. ^^

Oops. Wrong date.

Edited July 6, 2016 by Pythadragon

[-dicht.ThanksFrost-]

7 hours ago, Kontrollo said:

By the way, are we actually talking about the implementation of a ranking system or that silly minigame proposal? Because if the latter, that was mostly a joke.

no were talking about how adding a ranking system at the current state will just segregate populations and increase match searching times.