LoL

[Vyrosama]

Jeff/Vinny mentioned this as a good alternative to DoTA. Free to play, same gameplay but with more options etc. There does seem to be some cash shop system but unclear if this gives "advantages" to players or just aesthetics. There do seem to be bots that you can practice against for solo but unclear if you can do that for team matches. I'm willing to give this a try if/when we get bored with DoTA.

http://www.leagueoflegends.com/

[Peijen]

My brother plays that game.

[George]

I went ahead and installed it on my laptop. You only get about ten heroes at the beginning and each new one looks to cost ~$7 more. There is an alternate form of credits that you can apparently earn in game, but I assume you'd have to play a LOT to get enough.

[Jason]

This is another option http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/. I think it's a one time $30 cost. Although I'm not sure if it has bots.

[Vyrosama]

We (Jason, George, and I) gave this a whirl last weekend. You start with 10 heroes to play with and can buy new ones using "IP" that you get from winning/playing the game. Alternatively, you can shell out $10-20 for "RP" to pay for things instead.

The bot AI is kind of weak and only comes in "easy" or "beginner" difficulties. We ended playing some online matches and had more wins than losses by the end of the night!

Anyone else interested? I want the referral bonus so I can rack up more IP to unlock more heroes .

[Jonathan]

I tried it last weekend. I can definitely see myself interested in the genre, but this particular instantiation did not do a good job of grabbing me.

[George]

It was an interesting change of pace from DotA. I'm not sure its going to hold my interest for more than one or two more sessions, though.

I googled the AI difficulty issue. The AI's crappiness is strategic; it's apparently supposed to push new players into competitive games faster. Of course, I think it's a really bad idea. The skilled and/or experienced players hate playing with us n00bs and casual gamers. To me, it's just a game; I'm not going to invest the effort to learn to play at their level. Actually, I remember having that problem with Shattered Galaxy, too.

I guess haven't played many multiplayer games since CMU. Does this happen in all of them, or are there games where people of different skill levels coexist?

[Vyrosama]

I've seen three things developers have tried to accommodate for new/casual gamers.

1. matching algorithms - If they implemented a fairly good metric for player "skill/experience" then you'll always be matched with people that give you a challenging fight. Unfortunately, common metrics such as total time playing a game isn't always the best indicator of skill and that's when mis-matches occur. However the number of players playing in a game does help mitigate this somewhat.

2. scale - The more players playing, the more interesting dynamics that can occur from team play. Things like a veteran leading a team of newbies to strategies like strength in numbers allow for entertain gameplay with new players and veterans alike. Unfortunately game mechanics sometimes have a negative affect instead. For example, in Modern Warfare 2, you get perks for "killstreaks". The longer the streak, the better the perk; you get things from summoning bombs, attack chopters, to even nukes. A veteran player will hunt down n00bs over and over again to rack up a kill streak which will enable him to easily get even more kills. The only thing to stop him is a lucky shot.

3. randomness - Something that affects the battle that the player has no control over but can drastically improve the chances of winning/success. For example, a small chance to do critical hits in Team Fortress 2. This gives even the newest players a chance to wipe out the enemy team with a random insta-kill critical charge attack.

In conclusion...whoops...didn't mean to write an essay

[Vyrosama]

To answer your question, yes.

FPS:
Team Fortress 2 - random crits, discrete support roles that anyone can learn, 32v32 maps
Natural Selection: Extremely high learning curve that encourages veterans to train "recruits" how to work as a team and
use strength in numbers/or as cannon fodder...

MMO:
City of Heroes/Villains - the sidekick/mentor system allows veteran players to scale down/or new players to scale up. Pretty sure a lot of MMOs have similar systems.

RTS:
-Not enough experience to say- but SC2 probably has a decent matchmaking system right?

[Jonathan]

Eve - the whole point of Goonswarm is they have developed a culture and set of tactics which allow them to be successful with players who have no idea what they are doing.

[VLSmooth]

RTS:
-Not enough experience to say- but SC2 probably has a decent matchmaking system right?

Blizzard has vast experience in matchmaking across its library of games. SC2's matchmaking is arguably the best system out there, although I couldn't google useful details (presumably based on experience, win/loss ratio, specific player matchups/stats, etc.). Regarding effectiveness, the vast majority of players have a win ratio of ~50% and I've heard extremely few complaints so far.

Interesting Link:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... g-Too-Good

[Jason]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/ ... ble-value/

[Jason]

http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/08/26

[Jason]

And for the trifecta, the reason I stopped playing: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/ ... e-true-way

[Jonathan]

And for the trifecta, the reason I stopped playing: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/ ... e-true-way

I've been thinking about this for a while. On the one hand, I completely understand your point. On the other hand, I would not dream of playing Eve without, you know, flying something which stands up in the shifting currents of nerfs and buffs and meta.

If you relate this back to chess or softball or any other competitive thing, people generally self-segregate according to skill level. There are 20 different leagues of tennis in Atlanta to account for slight variations in skill level. If you brought your soft putt-putt serve into a game filled with former college players, they would yell you off the court. That never happens, though, because you know you should only play against dudes who also serve like prepubescent girls, or who have no backhand, or whatever.

In Eve, this self-selection is evident but not total. PL can attempt to smash any foe they care to, even a tiny highsec one. They mostly don't because it does not amuse them. It amuses Goons, so they attempt it far more often (Hulkageddon, for instance). Pirates and anti-pirates can slug it out in Molden Heath all they want without worrying about supercap fleets getting hotdropped on them because their assets just aren't worth the bother for the major nullsec powers. If you join a nullsec PVP outfit, though, you are hanging a shingle out that says, "I'm going to attempt to play optimally. Yell at me if I don't."

In LoL, WoT, SC, and other matchmaking type competitive games, I get the distinct impression that the "bush leagues" do not operate as such. Is it shoddy matchmaking? A lack of population? Something deep about online gaming in non-persistent worlds that I don't grasp? In the FPS games I have played, there was generally a complete lack of matchmaking. It just generates a server list, you connect to the lowest latency one, and you get stomped. Why is that? Why aren't there leagues?

[Jonathan]

Is it an instance of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory coming to roost?

[George]

My problem with LoL was that the matchmaking system refused to adapt to my skill level. It assumed that more play time automatically meant more skilled. Problem was that my skill plateaued. I got as good as I was ever going to get, but the matchmaking system kept putting me up against better and better opponents. I lost probably 45 of my last 50 matches against humans. Which was too bad, because up through level 20, I'd managed about a 1:1 win:loss record, meaning that the matchmaking had functioned perfectly.

Starcraft II was even worse. I got crushed without even having a chance to compete in three ranking matches. Why would you put a complete noob against people they can't hope to beat? So, I quit without even making it to the proper matchmaking system.

You can't have a bush league unless you keep the serious players out of it. Why would I invest to learn the game, when playing isn't fun and can't be for the first few hundred hours?

[George]

In the FPS games I have played, there was generally a complete lack of matchmaking. It just generates a server list, you connect to the lowest latency one, and you get stomped. Why is that? Why aren't there leagues?

Actually, for whatever reason, I've found the public TF2 servers to be exactly the right skill level for me. I hadn't played competitive FPSes in a decade, yet I was able to jump in and be competitive right away. Maybe the really good players tend to segregate themselves onto private servers? Although you'd still expect some griefers to prey on us losers, and I haven't really seen that.

[VLSmooth]

It's opportune that matchmaking just came up. On 2013-03-11 Blizzard updated previously uniform (e.g. 20% each) Starcraft II Heart of the Swarm league percentages to address skill imbalances.

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/906751 ... -3_11_2013
(full article with simple visualizations)

...Bronze... was too broad to be meaningful... Gold was too narrow... the lowest ranked players in Bronze... tended to be far... from the skill level... at the top... we're going to alter the population percentages for Bronze, Silver, and Gold leagues in order to equalize these skill gaps, and help each feel more meaningful...

...trimming Bronze league down to 8%... as a space for newer players... Bronze players who... steadily improve should find it much easier to be promoted into Silver... an area for those... starting to develop... understanding for the game... expanding Gold to represent 32% of... players... making the league more inclusive... help it... represent the... skill... players expect... Platinum through Grand Master will be unaffected by these changes...

[Jonathan]

So, basically, online matchmaking is still in its infancy. There's no widely disseminated model of how to implement matchmaking correctly.