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Teams room rearrangement trial

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There's been some discussion lately about whether it is fair or enjoyable for a group of individuals to be consistently matched against a clanstack and/or partystack, particularly one using comsharing. We are trialling a specified room where players are placed in teams without respect to their clan or other affiliation.

Whether this state of affairs becomes a once-in-a-blue-moon thing, is implemented more regularly, modified in some way, or discontinued will depend on how it goes. Posting feedback in this thread would be helpful but please keep the conversation polite and pleasant.
[Spoiler]

Why are both of the rooms set to max size 20?

So that there is a reasonable chance of people who dislike the ruleset of the first active room (whichever it happens to be) combining with the overflow to seed a second viable room.

Are parties grouped together in the single balance room?

No.

Is comshare disabled in the single balance room?

No.

Will clans always be split in the single balance room?

No. The teams decided by the balancer can and probably will put clanmates on the same team anyway some of the time.
+8 / -0
3 years ago
what about cluster f**k games? will i never see 16v16 again?
+9 / -1

3 years ago
Even if this system is very well received I expect 16v16 to still be available some of the time.
+3 / -0
Only complaint I would have really is that the player limit reduction wasn't aggressive enough. Im not sure 20 is low enough to encourage multiple rooms (at least from a microeconomics standpoint) and I fear this may not bring true choice about. Although I'm far more optimistic if this gets combined with waitlists.

From a clan perspective we're trying some new infrastructure to make some games that don't take weeks of planning to form.

Edit: True choice here means having multiple viable options (eg: two open games with 3+ people in them)
+3 / -1
While the intent is good, the reality will go against it.

Firstly, pugs always have a habit to fill up whatever room that has people first, that much you are aware. However, pugs rarely have the habit to fill up 2nd room, in most case, they will just queue in the first room that is already filled. In other words, people tend to swarm towards the room with more people, much of a hive mentality.

Secondly, clans and friend parties are a rarity such that they don't appear every night. In the event that they do appear, what if every time they do appear, it is the clan stack room that is filled and never once the single room, how are you gonna obtain any constructive feedbacks that consist of comparison between the two?

Thirdly, 16vs16 is the most popular and perhaps the only reason most pugs play this game for. A 10vs10 definitely has different experience from 16v16. As such, will the feedbacks you obtained be accurate enough to determine the correct course of actions for 16vs16?

I think it is better to have different trial period for different room settings and by doing so, everyone will experience both settings (regardless they like it not) and hopefully make a constructive comprehensive feedbacks.
+5 / -0


3 years ago
quote:
Thirdly, 16vs16 is the most popular and perhaps the only reason most pugs play this game for.

16v16 was the most popular because it was the quickest and easiest way to get a teamgame during the primetime hours.
+1 / -0
I am very sad to see this restriction, and that it even has been placed on all custom hosted games.

"Hop online for tense 1v1 or massive battles with up to 32 players. " This is in steam description and is now deceptive.
+10 / -1

3 years ago
so what are we supposed to post?
+1 / -0
quote:
I think it is better to have different trial period for different room settings and by doing so, everyone will experience both settings (regardless they like it not) and hopefully make a constructive comprehensive feedbacks.


quote:
16v16 was the most popular because it was the quickest and easiest way to get a teamgame during the primetime hours.




There's going to be a few people who like 16v16 games naturally and there's going to be most of us who just want to log in and play a game. For most people, a 10v10 with or without clan stacks is the same as 16v16 with or without clan stacks. I would not be surprised if your idea, if implemented, would result in nothing but the same people whining about support or loss of support for clan balances.

I did see a glimpse of hope though today: there was at one point and time a big team game in the clan balance room going on (full) and a 2v2 going on in the single balance room.

I really do not want to see the return of 16v16 games unless it's a weekend event.
+1 / -1

3 years ago
+1 / -0
Firepluk
Seeding is a huge issue with this design... As mentioned before a lot of players have hive mentality - they just go where more players are already in
Results will be skewed
+3 / -0
3 years ago
I'd prefer 16v16 sizes.
+16 / -1
3 years ago
One of the main things that wowed me in this game is that you could have a 16v16. why not put it to a real test and open both a 10v10 room, 16v16 room AND a Clan balancing room. Everyone happy and all go to their fave room.
+2 / -0
The current arrangement is not, repeat *not*, intended to be a competition between the clan-balance and individual-balance rooms to see which is more popular. Firepluk is quite right that the seeding problem would introduce a lot of skew in trying to draw those kind of conclusions.

The purpose is to see if we can arrange a state of affairs where both the people who prefer clan balance and the people who prefer individual balance get what they want some of the time, and when the number of available players permits it for both to get what they want at the same time. It is also a test to see whether two rooms will seed meaningfully more often when there are a set of people who really want to play with the ruleset of one room and not the other.

That does necessarily involve the people who really want to play 16v16 (as opposed to 10v10) not getting what they want at the same time... but those people have gotten what they want for a long time up until now, and I fully anticipate that no matter how this turns out there will still be at a minimum fairly regular opportunities to play 16v16 in the future.
+2 / -0
I was mostly trying to point out that utility for either product is likely similar and both can act as substitute goods. Seeding will be a problem but I think it can be overcome by social approaches. I noticed that yesterday there was a shift from single balance to clan balance in the replays though that I did not catch on the playerlist. This means that someone likely did a social approach to get what they wanted, so I'm guessing the design goal has been met to some degree.

While true choice has not been achieved, which is mildly sad, at least the design goal has been met.

I think the 16v16 crowd could get what they want once a week or so with an event. Maybe on Sundays.
+2 / -1
3 years ago
I'd love the rooms to be limited to 8v8 or even smaller.

Perhaps we, who like properly optimised games should start actually avoiding all welcome and get them small teams filled up. Let's do it fellas
+3 / -1
3 years ago
then rubolshakov joins the room and its game over
+7 / -0
3 years ago
I have to wait 30 min in the lobby for a spot in a 10v10 room or play 5v5. Amazing experience.
+5 / -0
3 years ago
Annnnd this only makes the whole balance problem even worse, at least with 16v16 it didn't matter too much if someone trolled. Now every game is lost by people going afk, rushing bb, troll com, rushing super... It's not the same.

We briefly had both games full tonight, and it was semi OK ish. Then the first room died and everyone piled into second room.

10v10 puts a lot more pressure onto the highest rank player when people go afk and it makes games much more stressful.
+6 / -0
quote:
16v16 was the most popular because it was the quickest and easiest way to get a teamgame during the primetime hours.

You are not totally wrong but you are also not totally right. In other words, you are only half right. Why? A few post down and you would see a simple "I'd prefer 16v16 sizes" with many upvotes, that speak for itself.

Your point, however, does tell us another perspective of different players. Realistically speaking, zerok isn't a massive populated game and for most time, it is damn difficult to even find people to play with, least say even get a cluster going. People are not machine, they are not gonna spend time which might end up hours waiting in another room hoping it will be filled. Reality is zerok is just not popular and is just one of hundred of thousands of games out there, on top of numerous sources of other entertainments. If people can't find a room to play then with a few clicks of a mouse, they disappear to other games or entertainment. I don't think such is beneficial to zerok which primary goals include enticing people to play in hope to grow the game's population. Well, unless zero-k does not want more people to play the game?

unknownrankShaman
And does your screenshots show a 2nd room that has people? Is weekend, don't we usually see a 32 cluster on weekend? What happened to the people? Where is that supposedly "overflow"? I reckon we should have 10 or so people somewhere.

I am not in favor of a trial that end up becoming a detriment to growth of zerok, as if zerok isn't tiny in population already.

AUrankAdminAquanim
As others (and I) have already pointed out, 10vs10 and 16vs16 have vastly different experience. To elaborate on that, one point is...generally speaking, as size become smaller, the influence of a individual (or clan) also grow bigger. With that say there is a lot of variables that can easily kill off a smaller room, well, not as if cluster didn't get killed off by some of these very variables. And...you got your first feedback regarding room size and it's impact.
+2 / -0
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