I think the hourglass mode needs to have skill based matchmaking. It’s incredibly unfair to run into people who have so much more time spent on the game that it’s impossible to sink them. I’d much rather wait a longer queue so I can have a balanced fight than just sink in 30 seconds to a crew full of skeleton curses when me and my buddies are all around level 15.
Hourglass matchmaking
think the hourglass mode needs to have skill based matchmaking. It’s incredibly unfair to run into people who have so much more time spent on the game that it’s impossible to sink them.
- hourglass is a tool for instant pvp
- is it also unfair to attack a ship outside hourglass and get sunk?
Like hourglass, your fight is pretty much random at this point. As if you found a ship on the seas waiting around. You attack but they turn and sink you instead.
Even with a “skill” matchmaking. You’re gonna end up with people making alt accounts who just wanna dominate the less played.
If your playing hourglass just for the rewards, your doing it wrong.
@actingbook71 I'm actually very surprised that, in a game where experience and muscle memory translate so directly to skill expression, there's no matchmaking of any kind, either for hourglass or servers in general.
On one hand, I like that positive interactions can come from this, as we see from a lot of streamers who run into new players and help them out.
On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if a growing number of new players simply stick with safer seas indefinitely after encountering a few longtime players who will attack on sight.
The real problem is that new players don't learn much from their PvP experiences when they spend the entire time dead, their ships sunk so quickly that they've no idea what happened. This isn't like chess when you can analyze your moves and your opponents: most new players probably have no idea what tucking even IS, let alone to check for it on your boat when you return from doing anything.
Hourglass absolutely does have skill based match making. It is a pseudo-Elo system that uses your W/L as your rating, and it tries to match you against other crews with a similar W/L ratio. There are two problems with this:
First, a player that has a W/L of 5/5 is not the same skill as a player with 100/100.
Second, the skill based match making engine (SBMM) prioritizes fast matching over fair matching. When hourglass started, crews would enqueue for 10, 20, 60, 90 minutes at a time to find an opponent with similar rating. This was railed against by the community, so Rare re-prioritized the SBMM to fast matchmaking, which can often lead unbalanced matches because crews that enqueue for hourglass tend to be very highly skilled.
Hourglass doesn't have a SBMM problem, it has a popularity problem. On-demand PvP is not in-demand with the average crew, so there is a very shallow player pool enqueueing for hourglass.
@lordqulex dijo en Hourglass matchmaking:
Hourglass absolutely does have skill based match making. It is a pseudo-Elo system that uses your W/L as your rating, and it tries to match you against other crews with a similar W/L ratio. There are two problems with this:
First, a player that has a W/L of 5/5 is not the same skill as a player with 100/100.
Second, the skill based match making engine (SBMM) prioritizes fast matching over fair matching. When hourglass started, crews would enqueue for 10, 20, 60, 90 minutes at a time to find an opponent with similar rating. This was railed against by the community, so Rare re-prioritized the SBMM to fast matchmaking, which can often lead unbalanced matches because crews that enqueue for hourglass tend to be very highly skilled.
Hourglass doesn't have a SBMM problem, it has a popularity problem. On-demand PvP is not in-demand with the average crew, so there is a very shallow player pool enqueueing for hourglass.
Therefore, I think Rare should implement some kind of incentivation so players that don't usually play HG do it. It will balance the player pool so there are more fair encounters.
@capt-pilotes absolutley. Lots of improvement idea's have been posted from offering daily deeds, first win of the day bonuses etc through to changes to allowing loot to multiply win/loss xp. Mode would benefit quite abit by rewarding participation, allowing defensive mode to be a legitimate way to play to increase variety and not just rewarding those who heavily focus on meta gameplay styles.
Lets hope Rare consider revisiting HG.
For me the problem with this mode is its a just 1 ship vs 1 ship .what about a 6 ship battle and the last ship standing on the server. players get allegiance for their place at the end and for how much ships they sunk.challenges for bonus allegiance are also a good idea.rare created hg a bit to sweaty
Rare retired arena because players spent merely 3% of their play time in it, and it required separate servers and assets to maintain. I.e., the cost of maintenance was not garnering any returns, so they moved the PvP on demand "game mode" into high seas to retire the aforementioned servers/assets, and appease the arena crowd (who until HG was added abandoned the game for the most part). Generously assuming HG sees 5% play time it still makes no sense to enhance hourglass, which is probably why we haven't seen any real changes to the game mode since its launch.
If a person doesn't like coffee, they won't get my favorite organically grown, roasted over a Texas oak, open flame in a one-of-a-kind, brick roaster coffee beans. Likewise, if a person doesn't like PvP, they won't enqueue for hourglass.
Take a moment to read the forums. New PS5 players are flooding it with posts that essentially amount to "sinking me is toxic." Those posts were popular long before the PS5 swabbies joined as well. The truth is that the advertised gameplay and animation style fail to meet player expectations. I've read more than one post here where new players legitimately thought this was a PvE game with no other crews in their session! The player base by and large doesn't like to focus on PvP. The bulk of us like the PvP, but not repetitively, we like it sprinkled here and there in our adventure.
So again, I'll keep saying it until it catches on, on-demand PvP simply isn't in-demand for this player base.
It doesn't feel good at first I agree. However, you'll learn much faster by playing against stronger players than by waiting in lines for hours when no one from your level is on. Don't focus too much on winning the fight at first. Focus on smaller wins like not getting one-balled so often, keeping good situation awareness of boarders, hitting their boat more often, keeping the angle and a good rotation, and things like that. Then, eventually, you'll start winning and winning more often. after that playing in adventure mode will feel much easier than HG.
@lafrules said in Hourglass matchmaking:
It doesn't feel good at first I agree. However, you'll learn much faster by playing against stronger players than by waiting in lines for hours when no one from your level is on. Don't focus too much on winning the fight at first. Focus on smaller wins like not getting one-balled so often, keeping good situation awareness of boarders, hitting their boat more often, keeping the angle and a good rotation, and things like that. Then, eventually, you'll start winning and winning more often. after that playing in adventure mode will feel much easier than HG.
This is quite possibly the silliest and most demoralizing argument I hear on the forums. "Just keep playing, you'll learn and get better!" E.g., just keep playing, we need more victims for the pyre.
Unless you record your battles, chances are against a good crew the match is over before you know what's going on and don't really remember anything to learn from. It's essentially video game PTSD.
Best advice I have? Play hourglass once a month. Go practice PvP in high seas; there are less sweats there because all the "serious PvP'ers" are in hourglass.
right im not being funny but i have multiple issues with hourglass. if i battle and win 2 battles against players that are new to the game and another team have battled the sweatiest crew out there and gone on a two streak does that make me on their skill lvl? no it doesnt so why should i get matched up with them. second reason, whats the point of having ally and levels to grind in athena and servants if it makes no difference who you come against. if im lvl 100 id expect to come against someone thats lvl 100 not someone thats new to the game it might be a free sink but ive been in his shoes and i know how it feels. it needs to be changed to actual matchmaking cause atm its embarrassing. spend 15 minutes getting set up and 5 mins waiting for a battle for a 2 minute battle. second thing i dont like is swords. they do a quarter damage and they stun you making you vulnarable to eat or counter. this shouldnt be a thing it should be they hit once then they have to wait a second or two before swining again. me and my mate are seeing so many pirates use it and theres no level of skill to be good with a sword. just run around and shing shing shing dead. it isnt fun and needs to be changed.
@actingbook71 yeah hg can def be challenging at first, but if they try and make it so you always get a perfectly fair match then you'll get like a tenth the matches you do now. Nobody wants to wait in queues for 30+ minutes, and even if you think you do, you'll get tired of it in a day. HG released with that "fairest" match mentality, and nobody liked it. You'd be waiting 20-30 minutes, play one 5 minute match, and then wait again.
Best thing to do is try and survive against people better than you. Figure out what they're doing that you're not. Then once you are facing a weaker opponent you can try out those new techniques and slowly get better. Also just playing in general helps a lot. All the "good" players started somewhere. And if you don't enjoy doing that, then don't. There's plenty of other content in SoT, and plenty of other rare and impressive rewards to try for. Don't force yourself to do something you don't enjoy just for a silly cosmetic.
@actingbook71 said in Hourglass matchmaking:
I think the hourglass mode needs to have skill based matchmaking. It’s incredibly unfair to run into people who have so much more time spent on the game that it’s impossible to sink them. I’d much rather wait a longer queue so I can have a balanced fight than just sink in 30 seconds to a crew full of skeleton curses when me and my buddies are all around level 15.
I somewhat agree, but the problem I run into is fighting players who constantly create new accounts that wreck me. Xbox app shows they have 1-2 days played in SoT yet they absolutely dominate the HG fight
@lordqulex said in Hourglass matchmaking:
Hourglass absolutely does have skill based match making. It is a pseudo-Elo system that uses your W/L as your rating, and it tries to match you against other crews with a similar W/L ratio. There are two problems with this:
First, a player that has a W/L of 5/5 is not the same skill as a player with 100/100.
Idk where you got this W/L theory info but it's almost definitely not true. All the devs have officially said is that it works on an elo system, there is a match maker, and the pool widens if it can't find a match in that skill bracket. There's nothing showing that the matchmaker doesn't know the difference between a person with 5/5 wins and 100/100.
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