Which is why there are still so many cheats in all the games?Xocrates said:
Seriously...I applaud your optimism, but there's no way it works like that.
A View From the Road: Matchmaker, Matchmaker...
- Thread starter John Funk
- Start date
Seriously...I applaud your optimism, but there's no way it works like that.
I'm honestly don't see what you're trying to convey. I'm not denying that there are cheaters and there will be cheaters. But I'm questioning their ability to be prevalent enough, especially in high rank ladder games, to be a source of serious concern.The_root_of_all_evil said:
This is especially true in a game like Starcraft 2 where Blizzard has so much control. Keep in mind that in, for instances, diablo 1/2 you could have as many battle.net accounts per game as you wanted, so banning a cheater was essentially useless, and even so Blizzard still releases patches that fight cheaters.
Take any new game. ANY game.Xocrates said:
Add in competition.
If we're taking the companies estimates, 90% of the games will be pirated/cracked. At conservative estimates, 50%. At uber-tight levels, 25%.
If 1 of your 4 friends cheats, he'll be at the top of the league all the time and there's nothing you can do about it; because if you ban him, he'll come straight back in.
And if you ban the non-cheating friend by accident, all hell will break loose.
Sorry, what?The_root_of_all_evil said:
Pirates =/= Cheaters
Quite frankly, that post is so awkward and so uninformed I'm actually questioning whether you're serious or just trolling. I'm seriously confused.
Also 90% copies pirated =/= 90% online players pirate. This is especially true in this case since you can't even create a battle.net account with a pirate copy. And in these cases what pirates do is not to use the system altogether, i.e. no official online for them.
Yeah, good luck getting a pirated copy on Battle.net.The_root_of_all_evil said:
You need to buy the game to get on Battle.net, where everyone else will be. If your copy of the game is banned, you need to buy a new one. Repeated cheating will almost certainly get you banned.
Oh, and disconnects count as losses. I learned that the hard way when my computer kept freezing because my GPU was melted.
I've no wish to carry on this back and forth so I'll just say that's the way I feel. And that's what was asked. Others may have differing opinions.
Not cool man, not cool at all.Xocrates said:
But the way that you feel is based off of blatantly incorrect information. And that *wasn't* what you were asked.The_root_of_all_evil said:
I asked "How will someone cheat?" Knowing that you cannot get on Battle.net with a pirated copy, and knowing that there is much more at stake for cheaters because they can't just create a new account.
You ignored that part of the argument and went off on tangents about pirates, continuing an argument based on incorrect assumptions. That's where the criticism comes in.
Amen, biting the bullet against Johnny Better-than-You might be a driving challenge in Forza or Street fighter but reading kekekekekekekekekek as the rush destroys your base as you were still perusing the tech tree is just frustrating. As you said, the problem lies in that in uneven matches, one player simply does not get to play.
"Is there something particularly wrong with players feeling exhausted after an intense gaming session? Can't they just, y'know, take a break?"
Out of everything in that article and interview about how the matchmaker might be too good, this was the line that jumped out at me. They want to make the matchmaker slightly more random because they're worried people won't play it for more than a few hours at a time?
If your game is so intense that you're worn out after a couple of hours, go get some lemonade. Hang out with your family. Watch a movie. Do some origami. Whatever you do to relax. Why do you need to keep playing the same game? It's not like playing the game more gets Blizzard more money, so why would they care if you do something other than play their game for a while after you've already bought it? Just weird.
As for everyone arguing about wanting to play outliers of skill sometimes to change things up: that's awesome for playing the game just for the hell of it. It skews things if some people end up with random easy matches and others end up with random hard matches, and since the matchmaker is primarily there to arrange for even games throwing that skew in the works makes it self-defeating. If I'm using the matchmaker to find an even match for me, why would I want to have a chance of running into some useless slob or a 400 aps pro? I can find those people on purpose without the matchmaker; I use the matchmaker because I want an even match.
That's why it is there.
That's what it does.
I don't understand the apparent displeasure with this mechanic when it's entirely optional and can be bypassed to make not-even games whenever you feel like playing someone who isn't in your bracket/rating/level/tier/whatever.
Sidenote: I must be in the minority in gaming; I find getting stomped in TF2 rather discouraging, mainly when I know it's due to my unfamiliarity with the map layouts compared with my opposition, and my teammates, who generally have the various ambush/sniping points memorized and pick me off while I'm trying to figure out where the objective is found. I never did find the fourth capture point on one map; fortunately you can skip that one and go to the last one, but it was annoying. When I'm just getting picked off by people I can't even find, I tend to take that as my cue to play somewhere else, not keep struggling for a 10-1 margin. It's not fun. Likewise, in a 2D fighter, someone of a much higher tier of experience with the game is typically not fun to fight because they're playing to win, which means 80% health combos. Fighting someone like that in Tekken often involves watching said player keep using one or two "safe" launchers until one lands, then watching yourself get juggled for 30-60% health, then probably getting juggled again while you're trying to get up and the round is over. Yeah, that's good times there. >.>
What's my point? I don't really see a difference between RTS games and other games in this respect: if someone is that much better than you there are no "small victories." There are only "brief delays of the inevitable." You're still going to be completely crushed regardless and landing one jab to interrupt a combo might be funny, but it's about as much of a victory as destroying some SC pro's scouting probe at the start of the game: it has zero impact on the outcome. You're toast anyway. Likewise, if you're not good enough to actually win against this opponent but good enough to see what he's doing and learn from it, that applies to fighters, racing games, RTS games, rhythm dance games, whatever: comparable understanding is comparable understanding.
I don't see a genre distinction when it comes to skill parity between gamers. You either know what's going on and can do something about it, know what's going on and can't do anything about it anyway, or you're wondering why the game ended so fast. Whether you're playing Starcraft or Star Fox you're still talking about relative skill levels and comprehension between players. Players are players even if the games change.
Out of everything in that article and interview about how the matchmaker might be too good, this was the line that jumped out at me. They want to make the matchmaker slightly more random because they're worried people won't play it for more than a few hours at a time?
If your game is so intense that you're worn out after a couple of hours, go get some lemonade. Hang out with your family. Watch a movie. Do some origami. Whatever you do to relax. Why do you need to keep playing the same game? It's not like playing the game more gets Blizzard more money, so why would they care if you do something other than play their game for a while after you've already bought it? Just weird.
As for everyone arguing about wanting to play outliers of skill sometimes to change things up: that's awesome for playing the game just for the hell of it. It skews things if some people end up with random easy matches and others end up with random hard matches, and since the matchmaker is primarily there to arrange for even games throwing that skew in the works makes it self-defeating. If I'm using the matchmaker to find an even match for me, why would I want to have a chance of running into some useless slob or a 400 aps pro? I can find those people on purpose without the matchmaker; I use the matchmaker because I want an even match.
That's why it is there.
That's what it does.
I don't understand the apparent displeasure with this mechanic when it's entirely optional and can be bypassed to make not-even games whenever you feel like playing someone who isn't in your bracket/rating/level/tier/whatever.
Sidenote: I must be in the minority in gaming; I find getting stomped in TF2 rather discouraging, mainly when I know it's due to my unfamiliarity with the map layouts compared with my opposition, and my teammates, who generally have the various ambush/sniping points memorized and pick me off while I'm trying to figure out where the objective is found. I never did find the fourth capture point on one map; fortunately you can skip that one and go to the last one, but it was annoying. When I'm just getting picked off by people I can't even find, I tend to take that as my cue to play somewhere else, not keep struggling for a 10-1 margin. It's not fun. Likewise, in a 2D fighter, someone of a much higher tier of experience with the game is typically not fun to fight because they're playing to win, which means 80% health combos. Fighting someone like that in Tekken often involves watching said player keep using one or two "safe" launchers until one lands, then watching yourself get juggled for 30-60% health, then probably getting juggled again while you're trying to get up and the round is over. Yeah, that's good times there. >.>
What's my point? I don't really see a difference between RTS games and other games in this respect: if someone is that much better than you there are no "small victories." There are only "brief delays of the inevitable." You're still going to be completely crushed regardless and landing one jab to interrupt a combo might be funny, but it's about as much of a victory as destroying some SC pro's scouting probe at the start of the game: it has zero impact on the outcome. You're toast anyway. Likewise, if you're not good enough to actually win against this opponent but good enough to see what he's doing and learn from it, that applies to fighters, racing games, RTS games, rhythm dance games, whatever: comparable understanding is comparable understanding.
I don't see a genre distinction when it comes to skill parity between gamers. You either know what's going on and can do something about it, know what's going on and can't do anything about it anyway, or you're wondering why the game ended so fast. Whether you're playing Starcraft or Star Fox you're still talking about relative skill levels and comprehension between players. Players are players even if the games change.
It's really encouraging to see this kind of discourse happening over this game when it's only in beta. I wish more games were discussed this deeply. Maybe there aren't enough games that merit this kind of discussion...
OT: I don't know what side of the argument I'm on anymore, seeing as all my perspective comes from FPS gaming.
THANKS A LOT, FUNK. GHAAAAWWWWWD!
OT: I don't know what side of the argument I'm on anymore, seeing as all my perspective comes from FPS gaming.
THANKS A LOT, FUNK. GHAAAAWWWWWD!
Hmmm. Some excellent points. It seems to me that the Starcraft mismatched battles would be akin to those battles in Command And Conquer where you vs players seemingly infinitely more skilled... They annhilate you before you have defenses. It's messed up. At a lan party, me and four others took on one guy. He won in 15 minutes. It would have been about 12, but he stopped to spawn a mothership and take out the remnants of the last guys base. It was hilarious though.