Starhawk General

[SuperGayParade]

     I've read a lot of alarmist responses to the announced matchmaking feature in Starhawk, and I would like to give a detailed description of what well-implemented matchmaking looks like and how it would affect the game and in-turn the community. Since Starhawk's matchmaking feature has not been shown to the public, this post is as much a suggestion as it is a hope for them to execute it correctly.

Let's start with a vignette:

     SGP logs onto the PSN and sees that 5 of his friends are playing Starhawk. In the XMB, it shows they are currently in a full matchmaking game, so he pings them to let them know he would like to join when the game finishes or when there is space. Meanwhile, he plays another game, watches videos, or listens to music.

     Once they finish, they invite him and he accepts the invite and is launched into Starhawk with the group. The group has selected the range of maps they would like to play, the size of the games, and the game types. Everyone is in a voice channel together and as usual there is lots of fun conversation. Someone just ranked up and can't wait to show off their new threads. They ready up and enter the queue to find a match. While in the queue, they are able to chat and their consoles pre-load any assets that are shared between maps in Starhawk.

     SGP walks away to grab a drink when suddenly, the siren's call of Starhawk blasts, a match has been found! The screen melts away to show the map, mode, and team they are playing against. They thumbs-upped 32 player games, so they join in a new game with 11 other teammates, some solo, some groups of their own. Their group chose to keep their voice communications internal, so they only hear each other.

     They already know they're in for a challenge: the enemy team is has been automagically organized to match their team's level of skill, and every player is in it to win it. The game starts fast, with different groups coordinating their strategies towards a shared goal, and the action swells as the map is populated by constructions. Barely pulling through, SGP's team is able to outscore the enemies in overtime.

     They fall back into the group screen. Someone has to go smoke, another teammate almost wet himself during the game, and everyone takes a moment to catch their breath. One of the players from outside of their group had brought his A-game, so they invite him to join them. He's a new face, but could become a permanent fixture if his attitude doesn't get in the way.

     After everyone returns, they ready up, and prepare for another thrilling game. Maybe some of their opponents will be on their side now. Maybe they'll face them again, in a grudge match. Maybe a new opposing group will force them to change their strategy. All they can know is that it will be a great and exciting game.

So, let's go over some details, the elements I believe would help make Starhawk matchmaking successful:

1. Easy integration with XMB. Some way to communicate with players in game or out of game that you would like to join, and a quick way to jump into groups. This includes joining a game in-progress if there are spaces open in the match, or even reconnecting if you (gasp!) disconnect from the match. I could see a window of time that would reserve the slot for the lost player, and after that it being open for others to join.
2. Voice chat in the group screen. Absolutely essential. Warhawk's community was great because it came packaged with a mic. I love talking with friends in-game and out.
3. Search preferences. You can choose what game types, maps, and sizes you would like to play. If you're really picky, you might have to wait longer before you play, or if you're itching to play ASAP, you can thumbs-up everything to have more options.
4. Group exclusive voice chat in-game. This has already been mentioned by Dylan. I myself would lean towards global chat to help out noobs, but I think the option to isolate your group is needed.
5. Intelligent matchmaking balancing skill and group sizes. This would create competitive matches. You wouldn't have to join a clan to have the same level of organized play a scrimmage would have, since you could construct a team of 8 to play against another random team of 8 of similar skill level. This has been hinted at by Dylan when he said they wouldn't release the details of matchmaking to prevent people from deliberately gaming the system so it underevaluates the players.
6. Persistent groups. After the game, the group falls back onto the group screen and can make roster changes, changes of preferences, or jump right back into the queue.
7. No pre-selected opponents. I thought it would be fun to challenge the other team to a re-match, but that allows for people to stat-pad by going re-matching time after time if they were motivated enough to do so.

     So why is this so essential to a positive player experience? It's rather simple: it ensures a good game by matching players of similar skill. It also cuts out the tedious hunt for a good server. It removes the awful pattern of team-stacking and imbalanced games that alienated players from Warhawk. It funnels players into matches *they want to be in*, rather than a huge list of servers that is confusing to navigate and select from. A positive player experience means a larger player base, means less people walking away in frustration, means a longer lived and more successful game (all hail Lightbox!)

"But what about player ranked servers?!"

     Oh, you again... Player ranked servers allowed stat padding to go rampant. It also allowed to hosts to kick players that challenged them, stack their own team with ease, and all sorts of poor behavior.

"But I don't care about people stat padding, I just care about myself and want to play ranked games on my own terms!"

     Ranked. RANKED. Just let that ring in your head a bit. Ranked stats are only meaningful if the environment in which they are earned is controlled and not abusable. Stat padding in Warhawk meant that your well earned stats meant less, since someone else could have their friend sit in front of them feeding kills, or tossing flags all day. By preventing stat padding, ranked stats will mean more to everyone and can actually be used to measure some degree of ability and progress as a player.

"But they are taking away my freedom to choose!"

     No, they are not. Firstly, you can choose what kinds of matchmaking games you would like to play. If you only want to play dogfight on Acid Sea, it's your lucky day, and you can have at it. Secondly, if you REALLY want to have your own thing going, like maybe you want to have a jeep tossing competition, or maybe you just want to play the game regularly but on your own server, you can. You can, but it will not be ranked.

     This is a contradiction that bothers me with the naysayers. They don't care about stat padders because those stats don't matter, but they want to have their own servers ranked because those stats do matter. Reality check, you're playing a game, and I hope you're playing it to have fun. If you really don't care about stats, you have the option to play whatever however. If you care about stats, you have every reason to be supportive of a matchmaking system, since it will give credibility to those stats.

     I am very confident in Lightbox's ability to develop a great game given our love for their last. Thus, I am also confident they will be able to create a successful matchmaking system that will put many other games to shame. People bring up Call of Duty, Killzone, whatever. Just like games can be good or bad, game features can be good or bad, and matchmaking, if done right, will make Starhawk the greatest multiplayer game of next year and many after.

Update 7/27/11:

From: http://comic-con.gamespot.com/video/6325096/comic-con-2011-panel-scea-starhawk-the-evolution-from-wa...

Harvard Bonin said:
     Warhawk,  I have said many times that I always felt like it was kinda like a hard  candy in that it was really hard on the outside but and if you worked  at it a long time it was really soft and gooey and fun on the inside,  and that just means that the barriers to entry to the game were just far  too high. This is why we've done a lot of things in terms of our  matchmaking or the solo campaign and all these sorts of things that we  think will allow people to get into the game a lot easier. Warhawk again  just for history never had even a matchmaker at the beginning of  release. We ended up patching that in. This time around we've got that,  we've got game lists, we've got create your own game, you name it, and  the last thing I'll say about this because I know we are out of time,  well you know what, we'll wait till later and do that.

This supports my predictions that matchmaking will be fully developed with features like I described in my post. It also seems like Harvard was about to spill the beans on the details, but held his tongue! Expect to hear more in late August at gamescom.

Update 8/8/11:

In response to a 7/20/11 interview - http://www.examiner.com/video-game-news-in-national/dylan-jobe-comments-on-trophies-dual-login-spilt...

Dylan Jobe said:
It was too easy for an unskilled player to get spanked by an Ace. This was bad because that unskilled player was never really given the opportunity to “safely” learn and improve at the proper skill... the Starhawk servers track and maintain all the player’s SkillScores so that the Match Maker *and* the Server List are aware of the player’s skill relative to all the other players out there. This makes the Match Maker better and allows players who prefer the Server List, to be aware that some servers may just be too challenging.

More support.

[darkfury23]

You've got some really good, important things the makers should make sure they have before release. The matchmaking on warhawk was a little rough but at least it worked. The quick match never really worked but everyone would love the choice between sticking to a server and matchmaking. I'm tellin ya, if you want a successful game like warhawk was and you want people to be playing it for years and years, then the key elements that I liked about warhawk are:

1)choice between run and gun, vehicles jeeps & tanks, and flying planes/spacecraft.

2)gotta have a balance between weapons, and vehicles. ex.rocket launchers, anti aircraft missles.

3)need a feeling of trying to take over the map, spawn points, and not too much frustration with deaths by making it quick to get back into the battle.

[MYSTAIN]

Sony has not got the match making right. Killzone3, Socom 4, Uncharted 3, and MAG all had match making and all of them have huge amounts of lag. Playing Uncharted 3 last night, I was grouped up with a Japanese, 2 French guys and a German. How in the right mind do they think there will not be any lag and on top of that, how do you communicate with them?

The other thing about match making I do not like. In Warhawk, my clan and I like to put up a player ranked server to practice for up coming clan battles. If they take that away and put in match making instead, that will take our freedom away and will not be able to do that anymore. We like to practice against ourselves and to try out new strategies.

If they do have match making in Starhawk, I will not buy it or even play it at all.

[PIERCEHOLDEN]

From my understanding you have both matchmaking for official servers and hosting for player servers.

A player ranked server is not really practice since there's points involved.

http://community.us.playstation.com/thread/1033906?start=0&tstart=0

Dylan Jobe did discuss before about how he wanted to make StarHawk like Warhawk but with more options.

[Params7]

Great post SGP but I still think server browser with strict arbiter system for the padders is better. If matchmaking can prevent top ranked players bullying newbies, and really manages to prevent padders like they were in Warhawk I can see why it would ultimately be for the better.

PIERCEHOLDEN wrote:
 From my understanding you have both matchmaking for official servers and hosting for player servers.
A player ranked server is not really practice since there's points involved.
http://community.us.playstation.com/thread/1033906?start=0&tstart=0
Dylan Jobe did discuss before about how he wanted to make StarHawk like Warhawk but with more options.

Player servers will not be ranked. I hope we can still get official ground only fun mini maps.

[Charlie90]

I've had fairly good experiences with parties/matchmaking in BFBC2 and UC2. I think matchmaking should be for parties and server select should be for for folks going solo. If you have a party of 11 people it probably wouldn't be easy to find a server to get in on, though, you might get placed in a server versus another big party or several smaller parties, but teams none the less.

As an individual you can search for servers with better pings or have the option to find servers with less party action, if that makes any sense. While I enjoyed BFBC2 and UC2, they were certainly much better with parties and matchmaking as opposed to just going solo, because I always seemed to get stuck in the same server with the same bushwokies on the same map. With server select, I don't have to join the same server over and over again and beat my head into a wall. I know the server I just left wasn't any good, so move on to the next. I don't always trust the computer's choice for server selection, though with big parties it may be necessary to get have the computer pick the match in order to get teams even.

As for player ranked servers, I have proposed many a time to have player ranked servers be an unlocked and registered ability/perk. Once you rank up to a certain level you unlock the ability to register to host a ranked server. That way your server could be monitored for anomalies such as excessive scoring, killing or lack thereof. If it is found that your server is in violation than your privleges are revoked, at first for a probationary period. Creating an alt to avoid the sanctions would be an impossibility since you would have to rank back up and then register again in order to unlock the privilege.

Ranking up in Official servers prior to unlocking a PR server host privilege would be good because people who have played enough to know the game would be hosting the servers as opposed to people who are trying to rank up via exploitation. Let's face it, if you can't rank up legit, you really don't have any business hosting a RANKED server. Host an unranked server with your buddies and play flag toss all night long if you want. 

[leukoplast]

I've skimmed over your post and it seems to me most,  if not all, of your suggestions could very easily be done without having to rely on matchmaking to find a room. I also find it disturbing that the thought of sitting in a queue would be a good thing.

Bottom line is, all we need are server lists (and maybe a party system).  Matchmaking only over complicates things and makes it so people have to rely 100% on it to find a game. I for one have seen the destruction matchmaking can do to a once great server list game (KZ3 is a great example of why it just doesn't work) and I really hate the fact that Starhawk is taking that route.

I'm sorry and I don't mean to offend anybody, but matchmaking is for people who are too lazy to take a few seconds to manually search through rooms. And even though matchmaking will yield undesirable results nearly every time, people would rather take that then having to manually look for a room.   

Let me make an analogy.  Lets say you are hungry, and lets say you were going to take the matchmaking route to figure out what kind of food you want to eat.  To use the matchmaking way to find food, you goto your computer and have it randomly pick out food from some huge list of foods around the world.  Maybe it is something you are interested in, but maybe it isn't.  Maybe the matchmaking will only pick food that is popular in the area you live in, but it is completely out of your control. So you either try again to see if you can have it land on some food you want to eat, or you take the food it chose for you and end up not enjoying your meal as much as you should.

Then there is the server list way, which shows you all the food on the screen and lets you choose exactly what you want to eat.  Now doesn't that seem like the superior way to find food?  Or would you rather leave it up to blind chance? 

Matchmaking replaces the human brain with some flawed system of random choice based on a limited mathematical equation.  I want to choose my OWN games, not leave it up to whatever system the devs implement.  And it sickens me to think there is people out there in FAVOR of matchmaking, which has been historically proven to be flawed time and again.

To give another analogy, matchmaking is like living under a hardcore dictatorship, while a server list is like living in a free country.

[SuperGayParade]

Hi Charlie, your idea is definitely a good compromise. If implemented, I wonder how many points would be needed, with the fine line being enough to weed out and not so much that hardly anyone can. I could also see the community incensed that they aren't able to host right out of the gate, even if a dedicated group of players is able to because of their record.

Something I didn't talk a lot about is my prediction that games of Starhawk will be more focused around one whole gaming session. Rather than dropping in and out of a game in progress, matchmaking could arrange players into new matches on the fly. Because of build-and-battle, I think this is essential since the game's pacing changes throughout the round. In Warhawk, you could join a DC game and know exactly what was going on by the map. In Starhawk, it makes much more sense to orient the game around start to finish gameplay experiences.

In some ways, ranked server lists could keep friends from each other. I'm not alone in remembering the 32/32 server that all my friends were on that I had to keep trying to join, just hoping for someone to leave or disconnect, or of joining on the opposite team, once I am able to get in. I'm also not alone in having a disconnection, only to see my slot was grabbed while I am getting back on. Even if I am able to play with friends, that doesn't mean a lot if the games are all one-sided because of server stacking.

leukoplast, your fridge analogy is interesting but inaccurate. You know what food is in your fridge, and it isn't a computer simply picking something out of it for you. Think of it more like dating:

In one option, you have a list with people's names and their age, height, whatever. You have to scan that list and try to guess what person would be good for you. Also, you can't see the other people that are looking at the list for dates as well. You have the freedom to choose from the list, but you'll spend a lot of time jumping around since you can only tell so much.

In the other option, you put the kind of person you want to date in to a form, and they match you with someone who shares your preferences and who will be a good fit for you based off of lots of data about how you both are. If the system is well made, and the dating pool large enough, this matching will be quick and effective. The experience is based on a richer set of data than a list with superficial details. This creates a better match for everyone involved.

You're assuming that matchmaking cannot be done well since others haven't worked for you. I agree with you that if Starhawk's matchmaking is not well implemented like those other games it will be bad. What I am saying is that Starhawk's matchmaking can be done right and that it would blow server lists out of the water. You don't know how good you'll have it until you have it.

Dylan wants to create an unrivaled multiplayer experience that redefines the genre. I doubt he would let his game slouch by having the bare-bones matchmaking systems those other games had.

[Sharp_Dagger]

I skimmed over the post too and I think my response is best adressed by my blog a while back:

http://starhawkradio.com/blogs/2011/05/26/battle-stat-control-vs-fun/

Don't get me wrong.  I think the Traveling party system is a good additional option because sometimes you just want to play with your friends but it should not totally replace Player ranked "hang out" servers.

It is not clear that everything you suggested will be choosable.

As a nsupporter of player ranked servers as an option, I have written several related articles on the topic. 

With respect to "unranked", for me, it is not as exciting if you are doing the same things as ranked and not getting credit...just like the NFL preseason doesn;'t excite me.  Those who get excited for unrsanked probsbly get excited for NFL preseason.  People are different.

Most abuse of the player ranked system could be addressed by leaving balance on, random on and no team switch.  Keep kick powers so the host can control the other potential corrupt players, continue friendly fire without a vote to kick system and control cheating and sabotage by other players.  Discourage quitters (so no need for team switch) by having a losing bonus, loss of XP by quitting and recording bad stats even if quit.  Notify potential quitter with an "Are you sure" message explaining this.

For PR servers, that expression "Don't throw out the bably with the bathwater." applies.  No good arguments can be made without correcting the design flaws like balance off, team switch with the double switch glitch, random off (which was a reasonable option...with corruption potential... but now not needed with the party system)...etc.

[jason_ac]

What value does MM offer anyway?  Ok, a party system would be hard to do with server lists. How valuable are parties? Were your friends always online, and interested in WH? Could you rarely get into a game with them? Did WH have a lack of community because it lacked MM? Did the MM FPSes have a lot of community because they had MM? It seems WH had more community than most, and MM is irrelevant to that.

I actually want it all. Give us Official server lists, & PR, & MM, & parties.