Match making is terrible. Usually, for me, I'll be tossed into a game onto the losing side, IE someone quit and now I'm the lucky a-hole that gets their place. This is frustrating, but all FPS games suffer from this. However, put titans into the mix and what ends up happening is you get put into a game with 5 titans on the other side, and you're 100% scr***d. Since it takes kills to build up titans now, basically you have to be incredibly lucky, or some sort of wizard to pull through.. The problems with this game continue to mount.
Yeah, and this would have been the one positive thing I could have said about it, because they claimed they improved matchmaking, but they didn't. The problem is that these developers have no idea what matchmaking means. They think it means, "I want to get into a game as fast as possible with my friends.", and that's why they think adding the glorified Friends Groups with the fancy schmancy name of "Networks" solved all matchmaking issues. WRONG!!! All that did was segregate the community, which is really going to hurt a year or two down the road when the user base is really small. What matchmaking is, is creating an algorithm to insure that both sides have even numbers and even skill level. It has nothing to do with getting in games fast or being with your friends. What really infuriates me is that I am a computer programmer and I laid out all the logic for them on this site and others for over a year now. You can see it here: http://www.titanfall-community.com/threads/team-balance-matchmaking.2009/#post-46139
Sorry, ENSC, I just can't completely agree and am of the opinion that the claims of mis-matched making are over stated. I have played since mid-night on the launch and been on both consoles a lot of time and only once or twice did I get into a game where there was obviously a "party" playing and dominating. As to dropping into an ongoing game on the wrong side that is not the games problem it is the "player" who can't stand to get their heads handed to them over and over, I don't like it but will hang in there til the bitter end. If you want to blame anyone blame the quitters! "Networks" are no different that "Clans" in other games. I am in a couple of them and not once has there been invites to team up - not that it won't come. What I can't see is when you are in a match and there is a party it is hard to tell except perhaps by the "Tag". I have reviewed your proposal and it clearly makes sense but I doubt the developers will ever adopt it - it may not be in their best short term interests - and that is the problem with corporate America in general! It is a bit tiresome seeing all the negative "crap" about the game, in all the years I have "gamed" it is always the same old story "bitch, bitch and more bitching" - I say get on with it play the game enjoy it or move on to one that meets the players exalted expectation - which will never happen! We are spoiled.
Reasonable disagreement DARK. I only complain because I care so deeply. I loved TF1 and still do. My only complaint with it was the lack of matchmaking using an algorithm like I laid out. I do completely disagree with your statement I bolded up above. This is absolutely the game's fault. A player should never be put into an impossible position where they even have to consider whether to stay or quit. Man, I wish I had the money, I would buy the rights to TF1, add some rock solid matchmaking, set a meeting with the developers at Blizzard and find out what they used for their anti-cheat system in Overwatch and use the same thing, hire all the developers and designers that worked on TF1 who think it was better than TF2 and add some new maps, but not tweak anything else and it would blow the doors off of TF2.
Ensc; I bolded a part of your commentary, I often complained in COD when this happened, which was far more often than i have experienced here. One thing they did try was to penalize those who left early, didn't seem to make a difference since it wasn't meaningful. What I would like to see is that if you bail early you are given a "time out" so you can't join another lobby for, say 15 mins. The problem with not adding players to a game when others bail you soon will have no one on the other team and I have seen that happen - it sucks. I think the developers are caught in a catch 22 given the current matching system. Now don't start about your recommendation - I have heard it already enough and unfortunately it won't happen. Bottom line is live with it or leave it!
Throwing your hands up is not a solution. My logic accounts for this. I said that you can't control people leaving. You must let them leave and I don't feel they should be penalized, but as a developer, you can handle this very easily. As soon as someone leaves you halt all distribution to other games you are creating, treat the person leaving as an absolute emergency, fill their slot with the closest skill level person available and then, and only then, go back to resuming normal distribution. They just won't even try, but that doesn't mean we should just accept it and not complain about it. I'm not going to let someone squat over top of me and take a big crap on my head and be like, "Oh well, golly gee Wally, guess I'll just have to live with this guy crapping on my head." I want the best game possible to play and I'm not asking for much. They made no attempt at matchmaking at all in TF1. It was glaringly obvious. They've had 2 years and 7 months since that was released to develop a rock solid matchmaking system and all they did was create glorified friends groups. I'm a programmer and I know how easy it would be and I even laid out the logic for them. It's not asking that much when they are going to make millions on this game. You could afford to throw even an extra $100,000 at the absolute best programmer out there just to put in a rock solid matchmaking system. We deserve that.