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Lenticulas

Glops Matchmaking: stats, fails, and suggestions

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Glops MM sucks balls. How do we fix this shit-show?

Ok I'll start the ball rolling with the following:

Part 1 - Platoons
I counted through my screenshots folder - it took a very long time - and saw which glops matches had a Platoon advantage,

i.e. 2 platoon vs. 1.... 1 vs 0 etc and the results are as follows

Games WON by team with PLATOON advantage:  98
vs.

Games LOST by team with PLATOON  advantage:  42

 

  

4 hours ago, reciprocate said:

You know, I never realized that. But you summed up GLOPS PERFECTLY with it. It sucks for the average players like me who play it as a means of a grind without the hyper competitive tryharding of PvP or Ranked, or the monotony of PvE. Wish there would be an effort to rebalance it, but at this point it's not worth the effort.

One quick change I'd put in to GLOPS that'd cause a shitstorm but would be entertaining is removal of allowing any platoons to queue for it - force everyone to solo queue. Less things for the matchmaking algorithm to calculate and attempt to work into when forming the two teams.

 

3 hours ago, Quantum_Ranger said:

Alternatively, you could allow platoons, but with a requirement for them to be internally balanced, so players would have to select slots based on vehicle class or vehicles within a class. This would reduce the frequency of a platoon 'o Pindads.  Reminds me of a SH Ch3 match where I was driving M1 Abrams and MM put me in with a platoon of 4 other M1 Abrams.... clearing the runway did not go well due to lack of DPM.

Especially for GLOPS, I don't feel like I *have* to play a particular vehicle, as long as I get to play... so (even though it's tougher on the MM) it might be nice for any mode to be able to submit a ranked list of vehicles, and for MM to give you a spot in a match based on the vehicles you are willing to play. For example, PVE queue wait for BVP-M80A is 2-3x as long as any other T5-6 right now, but if I could get into a match with less wait using something else, I might be OK with that. The frustration is that you can only offer one vehicle in queue at a time.

This might promote more vehicle diversity in matches, which would also improve balance.

QR 

 

Edited by Lenticulas (see edit history)

"Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth."

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OK let's look at Premium vehicles

Part 2 - Premium Vehicles
I counted through my screenshots folder - and counted which glops matches had an advantage, in terms of more premium vehicles on one side.

i.e. 3 vs. 4 etc. - even if it's just 1 more. Everything from 0 vs 1, to 6 vs 7

Now we know that (new) premium vehicles are better that normal vehicles - unlike the reskinned progression tanks, ie Challenger Fionn etc,.
Therefore: if Prems are better, the team with most premiums should have an advantage, right? Does that translate into wins?

Let's see...

Games WON by team with PREMIUM advantage:  143
vs.

Games LOST by team with PREMIUM advantage:  81

 

Edited by Lenticulas (see edit history)

"Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth."

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So is there any correlation between the two? - let's have a look at the numbers:


Part 3 - Premiums and Platoons

People in Platoons: 928

People in those Platoons, also in a Prem Tank: 340

that's about 37% - way higher IMHO, than the amount of premiums driven by the general population.

 

Actually lots of the non-prem tanks in platoons were T-15 armatas - I was tempted to include those in the 'prem' class - cos they are decidedly OP; but i resisted.

So it seems that those Stat-padder munchkins are of course racking up every advantage they can get to the detriment of Glops MM
(not in any way a suprise)

Edited by Lenticulas (see edit history)

"Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth."

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Are these advantages distributed fairly?

Part 4 - Are these advantages distributed fairly?

Lets have a look, out of 299 games i was in with platoon advantage to one side or another:

Platoon Advantages on MY team: 126

Platoon Advantages on the RED team: 173

chances of me getting more platoon advantages than this:
99.61% ...  or  ...
the chances of me getting odds this bad 1 : 256

 

so the answer to the question : "Are these advantages distributed fairly"

is: "no, they fucking aren't"

 

Edited by Lenticulas (see edit history)

"Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth."

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Allow me to save you some headaches.

  • You can't run a skill MM because REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
  • You can't impose absolute platoon rules because platoons would never get in a match (and non-absolute rules, those we have already)
  • You can't ban platoons because social gameplay is a strong retention driver and way, WAY above in priority above balance, removing it is a huge no-no
  • You can't ban premiums or screw around with their matchmaking because they are paid content and their owners would not take kindly to their toys being limited (also, all your vehicle observations are based on pre 0.33 and thus potentially invalid)
  • You can't limit or ban any vehicles in fact, we can't punish players for owning certain class (and don't bring up SPGs, that's a very unique case)
  • You can't introduce absolute MM rules because the mode is already unpopular and it would just become deserted

Like I said elsewhere, there are no easy solutions to this, certainly nothing that can be randomly brainstormed by players on a forum. But... well, you can surprise me, miracles do happen sometimes after all.

Edited by Silentstalker (see edit history)
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59 minutes ago, Silentstalker said:

Allow me to save you some headaches.

  • You can't run a skill MM because REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
  • You can't impose absolute platoon rules because platoons would never get in a match (and non-absolute rules, those we have already)
  • You can't ban platoons because social gameplay is a strong retention driver and way, WAY above in priority above balance, removing it is a huge no-no
  • You can't ban premiums or screw around with their matchmaking because they are paid content and their owners would not take kindly to their toys being limited (also, all your vehicle observations are based on pre 0.33 and thus potentially invalid)
  • You can't limit or ban any vehicles in fact, we can't punish players for owning certain class (and don't bring up SPGs, that's a very unique case)
  • You can't introduce absolute MM rules because the mode is already unpopular and it would just become deserted

Like I said elsewhere, there are no easy solutions to this, certainly nothing that can be randomly brainstormed by players on a forum. But... well, you can surprise me, miracles do happen sometimes after all.

Thought so. And by the way you ARE running SKILL MM, I just mathematically proved it.

That* makes my decision so very much easier.

*When demonstrated exactly what the problems are that ruin glops, in terms of solidly researched stats, AW explicitly refuses doing anything about any of them, because reasons.

*And since AW also refuses to do anything about developing Glops, so the "continuing to fuck me up the arse" situation will remain eternally in play, basically permanently... enjoy your increasingly empty server, as the seals avoid the clubbing you are apparently entirely unwilling to do anything about.

Bye.

Edited by Lenticulas (see edit history)

"Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth."

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31 minutes ago, Lenticulas said:

Thought so. And by the way you ARE running SKILL MM, I just mathematically proved it.

That* makes my decision so very much easier.

When demonstrated exactly what the problems are that ruin glops, in terms of solidly researched stats, AW explicitly refuses doing anything about any of them, because reasons.

And since AW also refuses to do anything about developing Glops, so the "continuing to fuck me up th arse" situation will remain eternally in play, basically permanently... enjoy your increasingly empty server, as the seals avoid the clubbing you are apparently entirely unwillig to do anything about.

Bye.

Okay, I am going to take that as a hyperbole...

But yes, we will dedicate our resources to more promising things that will affect all players rather than trying to endlessly fix something that's practically impossible to fix.

 

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43 minutes ago, Silentstalker said:

Okay, I am going to take that as a hyperbole

Take it as what you like, I like hyperbole, however I am stone-cold serious about this:

please enlighten me..

5 hours ago, Lenticulas said:

the chances of me getting odds this bad 1 : 256

Which part of my mathematics do you wish to argue with?

Edited by Lenticulas (see edit history)

"Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth."

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19 minutes ago, Lenticulas said:

Take it as what you like, I like hyperbole, however I am stone-cold serious about this:

please enlighten me..

Which part of my mathematics do you wish to argue with?

Mathematics? You are making assumptions about the entire game based on 300 battles, at one point you argue with 42 lost battles. That is a statistically unremarkable number. To draw any conclusions, you'd have to have a sample two orders of magnitude larger. And even that's not great. Make it three.

You'd be surprised how many battles are played each week. I am looking at a weekly sample from back in 0.28 and it's around half a million battles per 2 weeks and that's PVP (Random Battles) only. AW has much higher player count than players realize.

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2 minutes ago, Silentstalker said:

Mathematics? You are making assumptions about the entire game based on 300 battles,

No. I'm just making decisions on whether I wish to continue having anything to do with this game base on WHAT I HAVE experienced.

6 hours ago, Lenticulas said:

Platoon Advantages on MY team: 126

Platoon Advantages on the RED team: 173

chances of me getting more platoon advantages than this:
99.61%

Go look up a binomial distribution calculator online.

I AM RIGHT

MATHEMATICS SAYS SO


"Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth."

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Well, fair enough, can't argue with your personal experience :) Whether you want to continue or not is ultimately up to you. You know, I could sugarcoat it for you. Tell you how valued your feedback is and that we will definitely take it into account. Like a professional CM would. But, I reckon you'd prefer the truth. That's MY way of respecting you as a customer. And the truth is, GLOPS is a problematic mode that we don't plan on overhauling anytime soon. Maybe in 2021, I don't know what the feature plans are for the entire year. But I think it's unlikely.

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2 minutes ago, Silentstalker said:

Well, fair enough, can't argue with your personal experience :) Whether you want to continue or not is ultimately up to you. You know, I could sugarcoat it for you. Tell you how valued your feedback is and that we will definitely take it into account. Like a professional CM would. But, I reckon you'd prefer the truth. That's MY way of respecting you as a customer. And the truth is, GLOPS is a problematic mode that we don't plan on overhauling anytime soon. Maybe in 2021, I don't know what the feature plans are for the entire year. But I think it's unlikely.

You couldn't sugar coat it for me, because:

A. I know what the actual numbers for this are, so whatever you say is irrelevant, feel free to bullshit until you are blue in the face

B. I know the truth, maths doesn't lie. That's my way of respecting YOU as a CM. You can tell me how you valued me as a customer all you want. 

C. I only play(Ed) glops, PvE is boring, pvp... 11k pvp games in wot, and 2.2k here, so, no more pal.

 

So yeah, bye.

7 hours ago, Lenticulas said:

chances of me getting more platoon advantages than this:
99.61% ...  or  ...
the chances of me getting odds this bad 1 : 256

Look up a binomial distribution calculator online and prove me wrong, I fucking dare you


"Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth."

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I'm just going to point out that it isn't actually a binomial distribution since there are (at the very minimum) 3 outcomes when it comes to platoon advantages:

  • Friendly team has the platoon advantage
  • Enemy team has the platoon advantage
  • There is no platoon advantage

Given that you are only doing a binomial distribution of the matches where there was a platoon advantage for one team or the other, there is potentially a quite sizeable source of error in the form of all of the other matches you discounted due to the lack of a platoon advantage. Additionally, since you do not differentiate between platoons of 2 or 3 players or platoon advantages of +1 or +2 platoons, these are also potential sources of error (e.g. does 3x 2-player platoons vs . 2x 3-player platoons count as a platoon advantage for the team with 3 platoons despite each team having 6 players in platoons?).

Edited by MK_Regular (see edit history)
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When there's no easy solution to fixing GLOPS, you may as well try absurd things and see what sticks. Because inaction isn't leading to anything productive. Your own stats show for a fact it's more popular of a mode than your standard Random Battle PvP mode but is crippled inherently by the nature of people either giving up too easily or getting seal clubbed. Address those issues by whatever absurd means there is. Not just in test server, force it in live but give fair warning - expect a fallout and the sealclubbers/elitists protesting = but fuck em because you already put in the focus with your patches and development ideology to cater to casuals or new players anyway. 

Complacency won't get you anywhere, you got one game mode which clearly has more active players than the other one because it reaches an approachable middle ground of entertainment for the playerbase without the unforgiving nature of Random Battles or Ranked, and without the boring monotony of PvE. 

I'm not telling you exactly WHAT to try to implement, just TRY to implement something outlandish to GLOPS even if it gains a negative reaction even if only temporarily. What else do you have to lose? 

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What I find hilarious is that Lenticulas posted awhile back (some weeks ago or so) that he was quitting AW (and yet he didn't stop posting).... yet here he is again posting of AW.

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21 hours ago, Lenticulas said:

And by the way you ARE running SKILL MM, I just mathematically proved it.

Your numbers didn't prove the presence of skill-based MM, all your data showed is that the MM don't distribute platoons and vehicles equally (which is already known). You're taking a giant leap by saying this unequal distribution is somehow related to anything skill-based at all.

You are also ignoring the impact of yourself in each of your match outcomes. Regardless of your skill, your performance (or lack of) will have effects in each of your matches such as allowing your team to have the local numerical advantage/disadvantage. If you damage something, that's an impact in the overall match. You cannot prove the presence of skill-based MM when you yourself is a variable in your experiment.

Your sample size of 299 is also statistically insignificant in what you're trying to prove, given the Glops player population of a few thousand (I think) and the total number of Glops matches played server-wide over the period of time it took you to sample 299 matches.

I'm sorry, your math is actually just bad and your experimental method flawed. SS is correct in pointing that out.

 

I would ignore the numbers and stay with the theories and suggestions.

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1 hour ago, Tired_needs_Nrg_Drinks said:

Is it possible for us to get the global player numbers/ pvp battles for us to do stats on them?

I have some old ones. New ones... not easily, for some internal reasons. I'll try but the chances are low.

Either way, I think you guys are approaching the topic wrong. Ask yourselves - what is the GOAL of any proposed changes? Why change things in the first place?

Edited by Silentstalker (see edit history)

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20 minutes ago, Silentstalker said:

I have some old ones. New ones... not easily, for some internal reasons. I'll try but the chances are low.

ngl, i wanna practice stats, and this seems like a good way to help with ACCURATELY showing MM conditions as well, and it can be peer reviewed by you/other CC's.

 

20 minutes ago, Silentstalker said:

Either way, I think you guys are approaching the topic wrong. Ask yourselves - what is the GOAL of any proposed changes? Why change things in the first place?

tbh i think changes on vehicle mechanisms in glops warrant more change than MM at its current state, I haven't had the chance to play GLOPS myself yet in 0.33, but given the amount of  people that do not like ATGM chip dmg. It probably a good start to change that one out.

Edited by Tired_needs_Nrg_Drinks (see edit history)

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What hasn't been said already? Idk, at least, this seems an old fashioned case of causation vs correlation... But whatever, I would be interested in seeing a test of glops without wildcards. Although this might turn out horribly... 

14 minutes ago, Tired_needs_Nrg_Drinks said:

tbh i think changes on vehicle mechanisms in glops warrant more change than MM at its current state, I haven't had the chance to play GLOPS myself yet in 0.33, but given the amount of  people that do not like ATGM chip dmg. It probably a good start to change that one out.

Not really, chip damage is really not much of a issue in glops or pvp, pve is were it is bad. That said, I still don't like 0.33, so I can't bring myself to play too many games. 

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14 hours ago, Silentstalker said:

Ask yourselves - what is the GOAL of any proposed changes? Why change things in the first place?

For my part I really would like new maps to play on. Sure its annoying to meet the statpadders platoons, but they are not unbeatable. I might not be able to outdamage them but I can steal the cap points needed to win.

As for changes : I really wish there was less wild cards on the maps. Alot of people get distracted by them and spend minutes driving to them to only get the drone or the bunkers. That usually get shoot down the instant they spawn.

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1 hour ago, Norse_Viking said:

For my part I really would like new maps to play on

As for changes : I really wish there was less wild cards on the maps. Alot of people get distracted by them and spend minutes driving to them to only get the drone or the bunkers. That usually get shoot down the instant they spawn.

I think everyone loves new maps. On the other hand, if new maps are produced, we probably shouldn't whine [right away] if they aren't well balanced.  I know map design is not easy, but perhaps a contest to submit new map proposals (or collaboratively critique the semi-finalists) might generate some cool ideas (and kill off some bad ones).

Wildcards do actually have an indirect benefit. It allows noobs {like me!) driving squishy vehicles to feel like we're contributing something while not getting killed. The fewer times we die, the more match points we save. Yes, I would definitely rather help cap, but will usually die first in the ambush/initial defense.

And yes, I would love to see more GLOPS players so I can try out the BVP-M80 Foka turret against the drones and gunships, which is impossible right now because T5 Glops is null.

DVC,

QR

 

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Sorry to join as this. I'm Cpt_SmoothBore in game, i play regularily GLOPS in the GMT evening every day.

I did play the past weeks battles (0.33 till a week ago) as a solo player without a platoon.
i noticed two common issues.

1. Sides don't have homogeneus composition. (for instance, a side can have x6 type10s, one side none, of those x6 types could be a full platoon plus 3 matchmaked loners). As expected, the side with x6 Type10s does win when fighting 2x Leo-AX, 2x T4s. If the matchmaking could set those x3 stray Type10s against those x3 type10 in a platoon, probably won't be enough but would be surely less unbalanced.

2. Sides don't have the same amount of platoons or commonly battalion stacked platoons on one side. Happens more often than not to see a full A1arm platoon in the same team of another full glops vets platoon (ERA, Ardor, GLUM, COBET, etc). The outcome is quite obvious, its a 2400-0 steamroll. Taking into account that the average random player joining the gamemode is either a. AFK b. Sits at spawn sniping in a XM1 c. Starts shooting other teammates, team retaliate, result is 3 kicked players, the rest of the 12 have to fight against stacked glops vets, game ends in 2 minutes (the winning side is going to spawncamp the pugs team by erasing spawn pillboxes and yolo rush).

From my 55% winratio i decided to add the strongest players as friends and just play in full platoons.
Went from winning half the games, to winning 22 of 24 matches when in a platoon with (for instance, Bepycr and Rummelsdorf)
That's was quite obvious, our platoon damage was equal to the rest of 12 players on our team, combined. Our cap points were equal to the sum of the cap points of rest of the team.

If matchmaking could set an internal player score value and distribute players/platoons evenly based on that performance value, things will improve.
if matchmaking could set an internal vehicle score value and distribute class/vehicle score points evenly on both teams, things will improve. (everyone knows that meta vehicles as type10/ATDU/640/PL01/M48/ would outperform any LeoAX/X21/Centauro/T14/MGM or other weak tanks).

Just IMO.

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4 hours ago, Cpt_SmoothBore said:

If matchmaking could set an internal player score value and distribute players/platoons evenly based on that performance value, things will improve.

If matchmaking could set an internal vehicle score value and distribute class/vehicle score points evenly on both teams, things will improve. (everyone knows that meta vehicles as type10/ATDU/640/PL01/M48/ would outperform any LeoAX/X21/Centauro/T14/MGM or other weak tanks).

I like the 2nd suggestion as an option to balance Glops (and PvP in general) matchmaking. Yes, it might take a bit longer than the current system, but any matchmaking system will usually require a bit more time to make a fair match compared to an one-sided match. However, I'm not entirely sure what the current situation is respect to the internal workings of the matchmaker (especially with regards to the average time to get a match vs. the amount of time waiting in queue before the matchmaker loosens the matchmaking parameters and allows for a more one-sided match) so I cannot say whether or not implementing internal vehicle scores would have any effect.

Another possibility (if it hasn't already been implemented) for improving the matchmaker would be to make it so the timer for when the matchmaker can loosen its parameters does not start unless there are enough players to populate a match (this should help prevent the matchmaker from randomly cobbling together unbalanced teams the moment there are enough players to populate a match).

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