The MM is just getting worse. It doesnt matter if you sail with all or xbox/cont only.
I wont bother pointing out all the problems as I think we all know by now what they are.
Its really bad. I want the cosmetics but maybe its not worth it with all the problems.
New Vegas is fun though.
This matchmaking is really killing my want to play the game.
@burnbacon In other words....YOu want that fancy curse? FORGET ABOUT IT. This game feeds casual players to Pros all day every day. The casuals get P'd and stop playing
@captgraykid said in This matchmaking is really killing my want to play the game.:
I was underwater for about an hour in two different sessions yesterday. Never got a match. Now I will just check the forums before I try pvp again. Clearly the issue has not been fixed, thanks for the update.
They plan on dropping cross-stamp match-making early 2023. We're all greatly looking forward to it hopefully giving us fair matches.
Also, they know the MMR is broken and people are getting matches where they are vastly outclassed and are willing to accept that for the sake of speed because losing fast is better than no match. But if they are putting us into losing situations knowingly, and the hourglass system rewards wins/streaks, how are they going compensate the lop-sided match-making to prevent loss farming?
@pithyrumble said in This matchmaking is really killing my want to play the game.:
I've signed off on this update like a few others.
@Ninja-Naranja tell them to kiss your aft. I'm not a fan of the update in general. Take a break if you need to.
Now that I know that's a safe thing to say around here, so many people are going to be told to kiss my aft. This is your official notice that I'm going to blatantly plagiarize that idiom.
@lordqulex said in This matchmaking is really killing my want to play the game.:
@pithyrumble said in This matchmaking is really killing my want to play the game.:
I've signed off on this update like a few others.
@Ninja-Naranja tell them to kiss your aft. I'm not a fan of the update in general. Take a break if you need to.
Now that I know that's a safe thing to say around here, so many people are going to be told to kiss my aft. This is your official notice that I'm going to blatantly plagiarize that idiom.
Kiss my stern works roo but doesn't flow the same way....
Presently seeing an issue where my friend and i are level 9/12 with the Athena's group and we're getting matched against players that already have the curses. How are we getting matched instantly (within 2 minutes) against players that have spent 10 times more time than ourselves in the mode? i like the game mode and the rewards, but i'm not seeing the S in the SBMM.
For some reason the last few days were the worst i experienced in the mode. The matches were awful, the players were the most toxic and spiteful people i've ever met in the game, which says alot. I can't blame people that wish this mode to die. Also there are people who pay others to level for them, can't blame them either. It's so bad that players risk perma ban, damn.
SBMM only works if there is a healthy population of players across the skill spectrum. Currently, due to multiple factors, hourglass has been burning the candle from the bottom, or grognard herding. That is, the bottom 10% can't get a win, so they leave the mode and create a new bottom 10%. Those can't get a win or make any progress, so they leave the mode and create a new bottom 10%. Those can't get a win or make any progress, you see where this is going. Now the only consistent players left are the top players who the rest of us in the game mode are being paired with because people of our skill level have left. Their match-making algorithm, due to low population, prioritizes fast match-making over skill-based, because the only thing possibly worse than a lop-sided match is waiting an hour for a match.
Hopefully soon they will release cross-stamp match-making (they've already announced it) which will put the players into a regional pool, expanding the player base of hourglass. I imagine when they release it many players will return (myself included) to see if they've fixed the issue and if I can actually get remotely near the 50/50 SBMM should be.
@hungry-owl3438 Or you get matched with people that use every swear word imaginable where you have the feeling you killed their grandma.
@burnbacon This "if you don't like it don't play" mentality is why the servers are empty. No one but LSD/TSD and sweat crews are even trying, because most of the new crews and inexperienced crews are getting wiped out and sank in 60 seconds and just giving up after a few sessions of no fights or all loses because of very very bad matchmaking. Lvl 10 should be against lvl 100+ both factions. What do you expect?
@lordqulex problem is they knew it was broken before they launched it. Head Dev said so. Remember, arena died because of similar reasons never addressed properly. The said legendary curse would come back when they thought of a good way.... Took years.... And that's just a glowy eye and tattoo cosmetic that was prereleased.
@lordqulex Very insightful. Thanks for explaining the Bottom Candle burning idea. I do feel for Rare devs as i'm sure there is a huge disparity in skill between players.
@r3troraccoon said in This matchmaking is really killing my want to play the game.:
@lordqulex problem is they knew it was broken before they launched it. Head Dev said so. Remember, arena died because of similar reasons never addressed properly. The said legendary curse would come back when they thought of a good way.... Took years.... And that's just a glowy eye and tattoo cosmetic that was prereleased.
Yea, hardest lesson I had to learn in my career was that companies make money off of products that are 80% complete. They knew it was broken, but broken was better than nothing because hourglass did bring the PVP'ers back into the game. More players is always a good thing in my opinion.
Yesterday i had the best match so far. We were both evenly matched crews. The enemies were not toxic at all, didn't use exploits and were overall pretty chill. This is what the mode should be. Unfortunately that's not the case most of the time, and they got nothing basically after losing. Which is absolutely unfair because they should still get a good amount of allegiance for their efforts.
@shenlongkazama said in This matchmaking is really killing my want to play the game.:
Yesterday i had the best match so far. We were both evenly matched crews. The enemies were not toxic at all, didn't use exploits and were overall pretty chill. This is what the mode should be. Unfortunately that's not the case most of the time, and they got nothing basically after losing. Which is absolutely unfair because they should still get a good amount of allegiance for their efforts.
I absolutely agree. The problem is the balance between "fair" rewards and balancing loss farming. If the consolation for losing is too big, players won't even try to win and will just ram each other to see who sinks first to get the curses. If they take away loss allegiance, casual players will just stop playing. There needs to be enough of a reward to get people to try, but not too much to make them give up.
I think the best suggestion I heard was "award half the streak bonus when you sink." It will encourage people to go for streaks instead of the current meta of "get a two streak and turn in," and it will encourage people to actually try and win. (I view loss farming as a plague on hourglass that needs to be eradicated post haste.)
@lordqulex I understand, my win rate is about 50/50 using mostly random gally crews. Sadly, I have not played SOT for almost two weeks now. I was so exited to have a new pvp mode,where I didn't have to server hop all night looking for a fight.
Somebody please tag me when the que times are fixed. I honestly can't wait to captain my gally again.@ninja-naranja pretty sure I fought you and you and your duo, were decent (capn Morgan right)? You got this man stick with it. Hopefully the stamp updates are coming soon
@captgraykid
Wait, 50/50 is pretty good man. I'd seriously pay money to get a W/L ratio that high. Why are you quitting??The relative lack of player engagement between both dedicated PvP "modes" this game has had - first Arena, now the Hourglass - isn't a failure on the part of Rare, I would argue. Instead, it says something about the playerbase: the majority of players clearly don't play this game for the PvP. Instead, they're perfectly happy keeping to themselves with the PvE, and only fighting with others on their immediate server should they be encountered, and when it's absolutely necessary.
@blam320 said in This matchmaking is really killing my want to play the game.:
The relative lack of player engagement between both dedicated PvP "modes" this game has had - first Arena, now the Hourglass - isn't a failure on the part of Rare, I would argue. Instead, it says something about the playerbase: the majority of players clearly don't play this game for the PvP. Instead, they're perfectly happy keeping to themselves with the PvE, and only fighting with others on their immediate server should they be encountered, and when it's absolutely necessary.
I would say it's more they don't play for the pvp that Rare has long offered through effects of their risk/reward decisions
It's not that adventurers in this game weren't down with some pvp it's that the pvp they have long been offered is one sided and just not fun for them, a choice between overpowered pvp server hoppers or contrived pvp with boats thrown on top of one another
Random adventure pvp with varied skill levels is something many are alright with, it's the pvp that clearly serves content creators and non risk takers that is off-putting to people.
Much of the pvp resentment being amplified with ridiculous chain shot implementation, which introduced easily immobilizing ships in a game that has camping boats as one of its main styles of combat.
Imo as someone that has played organically my entire time and all my interactions with random people over the years they were pushed out of pvp because of how miserable the gaming experience of pvp became.
Having producers of loot spending 2 years getting immobilized and spawn camped through chain shot spam and server hopping should have never been viewed as a sustainable approach to an adventure game that is designed for risk/reward.
Compare how quickly they reacted to content creators complaining about blunder bombs meanwhile chainshots were NEVER addressed in a serious way while they were contributing to wiping out organic activity and risk taking.
Many people that play this game organically have literally never known combat to be anything other than having mass chain shot spam and camps by people that fresh spawned or popped out of a portal 5 minutes earlier with zero investment in the server. This content doesn't offer them a better alternative to that, just an alternative that has less of what they enjoy with more of the same combat.
Rare really need to remove that frustrating notification about “matchmaking preferences” when you’re on Xbox servers. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy, helping empty out the Xbox server player base. Thus exacerbating the problem.
Xbox players are being fed to the wolves. And told to suck it up and move to PC. It’s awful.@hiradc yeah, we got wrecked 2/3 of the matches we played. I normally play with Bizzy though.
And I’m definitely keeping at it. Thankfully a good break was all that was needed. Although if they could put out the stamp matchmaking this month that would be great.
@mostexpendable said in This matchmaking is really killing my want to play the game.:
Rare really need to remove that frustrating notification about “matchmaking preferences” when you’re on Xbox servers. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy, helping empty out the Xbox server player base. Thus exacerbating the problem.
Xbox players are being fed to the wolves. And told to suck it up and move to PC. It’s awful.Despite Controller players performing better on PC, and I'm betting Xbox Series X players with a heavy amount of skill can go toe to toe with these tough crews on PC (with some obvious help of course). I dunno, seems like the slightly better move.
I do like the Controller input for SoT since its vibrations on wheel are really nice, and aim on cannons are pretty smooth. Outside of that though, you're awfully limited, and it seems most Xbox players in general are just casuals that think they're good cause they just max all their sens settings and set a few button binds.
@nex-stargaze it’s a totally even experience, until the PC players boards your ship… it’s like letting Michael Myers in the house. They hop around faster than you can turn. There’s zero comparison at this point. - unless you train your thumbs like a god… there are a few out there. But no thank you.
Xbox v Xbox works beautifully. I’d love that back please.@blam320 a dit dans This matchmaking is really killing my want to play the game. :
The relative lack of player engagement between both dedicated PvP "modes" this game has had - first Arena, now the Hourglass - isn't a failure on the part of Rare, I would argue. Instead, it says something about the playerbase: the majority of players clearly don't play this game for the PvP. Instead, they're perfectly happy keeping to themselves with the PvE, and only fighting with others on their immediate server should they be encountered, and when it's absolutely necessary.
I'd argue people don't play this game for PVP cos PVP in this game is a buggy mess, and the opposite of competitive. In short, in Sea of Thieves, the better player may win, but may not.
If I'd wanted to play PVP, I'd go to a game like Overwatch. Sea of Thieves is not the game that pops into minds when people think about PVP.
And that's why I NEVER understood TDMers. How can you get any pride at stomping low-lvl players that aren't even here for PVP ? While you have other games that WILL reward your thirst for blood more satisfyingly. Here, let me say it : these players aren't PVPers, they just want easy win so they can feel strong.
And these are the one defending the current state of this hourglass mode. Why are we listening to them already ?Yea, I call SoT PVP for the slow. Compared to modern PVP games that are mostly twitchy head-clickers, in SoT reload is slow, melee is slow, engagement is slow... Winning PVP in Sea of Thieves is like winning a foot race against a bunch of tortoises. This is not a PVP game, it's a PVEVP game, and that's why a bulk of the players are annoyed at putting these curses behind PVP wins: they're just not here for the PVP.
Putting two of the most requested curses behind PVP was a massive bonfire of bridges that Rare built with their community. They've got to do something to rebuild those bridges. But to be fair, the SBMM remedy that they are working on as we speak will hopefully go a long way to make matchmaking more fair and more fun.
What region are you in? I've seen a thread asking for North African regions, and I know OCE region struggles with population, but NA and EU shouldn't have too much trouble finding matches. Are you diving or defending?
I've played on OCE servers before (they didn't mention region in Discord ad), and my ping was ~250. It makes boarding tricky but honestly ship combat was not terrible... I think it would go a long way if they did cross-region match making for the lower population regions as well...
@jolly-ol-yep said in This matchmaking is really killing my want to play the game.:
I'd argue people don't play this game for PVP cos PVP in this game is a buggy mess, and the opposite of competitive. In short, in Sea of Thieves, the better player may win, but may not.
If I'd wanted to play PVP, I'd go to a game like Overwatch. Sea of Thieves is not the game that pops into minds when people think about PVP.
And that's why I NEVER understood TDMers. How can you get any pride at stomping low-lvl players that aren't even here for PVP ? While you have other games that WILL reward your thirst for blood more satisfyingly. Here, let me say it : these players aren't PVPers, they just want easy win so they can feel strong.
And these are the one defending the current state of this hourglass mode. Why are we listening to them already ?I'm just going to speak from my perspective and the things I've experienced in this game. I personally think PvP in Sea of Thieves is not as competitive as other games because it is very different from them, it tries to be unique but being unique is not always something good. If you play team deathmatch you get a couple of kills and the score goes up, in capture the flag you grab the enemy flag and return to your base to score, in domination you capture multiple objectives to score. In team deathmatch no one can erase your team's kill count (except PvZ:GW but it works there), in capture the flag the enemy team can't uncapture the flags you manage to get take from them, in domination the progress bar that respresents score from mantaining multiple zones under your control cannot be drained, it stay the same even if the enemy team takes control of all the zones. Sea of Thieves has only one objective in PvP: Sink the enemy ship, and in order to do that you need to make holes on the enemy hull and let the water fill the boat. However, unlike the other games, in Sea of Thieves the enemy can patch the holes and drain the water, erasing all the progress you made towards the objective. That's why I see that boarding is the meta because a player needs to get on the other ship and prevent the enemy team from patching and bailing water. That's why I see spawn camping happens a lot. It's part of the core gameplay, and I don't like it.
I don't know of any other PvP game that actually encourages this behaviour, in fact, I know that many PvP games have a force field barrier to prevent spawn camping, others make players invincible for a while when they respawn, others make the players respawn in different locations of the map to prevent it. In Sea of Thieves it is actually encouraged to get on the enemy ship, and kill them, and keep them inside the Ferry of the Damned over and over, because they are respawning right on the objective and the objective needs to be protected so they can't erase all the progress made.
The game right now doesn't recognize if a player broke the mast, the capstan, the wheel and made a lot of holes filling the water up to 99%, and then the enemy team does the impossible to fix the ship and restore the funcionality completely. And without a timer the only objective is to fill the hull at 100% with water. If a player doesn't manage to fill the enemy hull with water completely then the game will give a tiny loss reputation. If a player instead of doing all that, they stand still and let the enemy win they recieve the same ammount of reputation. So, if someone is not confident enough to win, why even try? Losing quickly is more effective than trying and still lose. That's why farming losses exist. To the game, performance doesn't matter, the only thing that matters is results. It's not a matter of "just win", because that's not how improving works, a loser needs to see how much progress they made, even if they lost, in other games they can measure the points they made by trying different things, different tactics and if they can't see which one is more effective then it becomes a much more difficult task to find the way to improve.
I don't think Sea of Thieves is made for competitive play, I think the system for rewards is not appropiate because it is aimed at a competitive gameplay. I don't expect many players to stay in the hourglass game mode in it's current state.I know certain someone may want to reply to me with something like "rewards are earned", "they must learn to PvP the hard way", "they should focus on winning", "try to improve" or something like that and probably will not analize my point of view at all and will keep repeating the same thing.
I am decent. Original PL. I enjoy pvp but am bad at it. average to below average pvp player. I have played many games today for reapers and guardians, and every single one aside from ONE (had original glow, so not sure) was against a 100+ win full ghost or skeleton skin player. Most of them I got stomped. My favorite one was a party boat where we rolled dice! (still lost!)
Point is, I agree, the matchmaking is atrocious and not based off skill. My guardian/reapers of flame level is like 12 and 8 or near. MMR is not working if I lose every single game where I am vastly overwhelmed in skill level and despite a 100% loss ratio that day, still kept getting 100+ers. Either Rares MMR has no affect, or it matters too little.
edit* Forgot to mention, one of my waits was an extensive one for defending. Remarkably, Out came more 100+ skelleton costumed fellows. 2 people, invading. Again, I was solo queuing. I guess at some point the game just says "ok, we cant find anyone, it's going to be 2v1. I am just not sure how a low level guardian even gets into that scenario. Rare?
@foambreaker aye, that’s how it feels sometimes. If you’re really good you can go toe to toe with naval, but once they get on your ship you’re kinda screwed. And in the same vain you can’t board the other ship to put pressure on them because you’ll get two tapped in half an second.
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