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Not trying to make a popular post here, just my own observations and keep it concise. I understand 90% of the people that read this will fall into the bracket of the main playerbase that enjoys MMR and would like it to just continue as-is, but I'm trying to look at the big picture.
New Player Experience
MMR has been great for the active community, particulary those from the American timezones. However, I'm not seeing how good it is for any emerging players like CZ350, David__kobra and so on. They get thrown in to begin with a relatively high elo, when 3000 is pretty much an 'average' player now, and 1500-2000 is more of an entry-level to low-end player. So when new players try the mode out, they're expected to pull the weight of someone who can at least go 8-10 or 10-10, and invariably their team gets smashed because they're a man down.
After being smashed for about 10 rounds in a row, if they're still playing, they then finally get matched to where their rating is.
qan - Now that MMR is 'established' and ratings have pretty much settled, can you lower the new players down to a 2k entry rating ?
Effect on TWD
TWD is now dead, and only serves as a method to provide captains for largely borrowed teams for basing. There is no incentive to play TWD any more, and TWD was the main funnel for newer players into lower-ranking squads to learn competitive play against other lower-ranked squads. In MMR, the lower-skilled players are spread between teams and are just generally shat on for being non-contributive.
Squads (communities)
With no reason to play TWD, squads are largely pointless now outside TWL, and losing the squads means the community aspect of gaming is harmed.
Suggestions
1. Scheduling
In order to keep TWD alive, and I'd hope most would agree that TWD is a generally a good thing, I think MMR might be best to be limited or scheduled to certain, pre-determined timeslots. There could be a calendar where MMR occurrs, where Jav or WB gets played between certain hours and hosts would be available to cover this schedule. Once the schedule is completed, MMR is closed until the following day, allowing more opportunity for games of Base to naturally evolve, and other game types - tourny, zombies and so on. It would also provide a window where competitive players in the WB/Jav seen can look to arrange and play TWD games, and diversify out into basing without competing directly against their preferred gametype to do so.
Advertised scheduling also means you'll get people planning to play at less popular times than before, e.g. if Euros knew that at 9pm GMT there will be Javs hosted for 90 minutes, they'll log in for that. If they know that at 11.30pm GMT there'll be warbird, they'll log in for that. A lot of people's time is currently wasted waiting for a mode they want to play, or not even having hosts online, or just having 5-6 people online concurrently that'll play any mode of MMR, who sit in elim for 10-15 minutes, log out, then someone else logs in to take their place and there's this constant cycle of 'not quite enough' players to get MMR started.
2. If not scheduling, MMR Gatekeeping
A more whacky idea would be to enable entry to MMR, you must be play X games of TWDD/TWDJ in the preceeding 7 days. Now, I know this sounds like work and I know people just want to log in and have fun, but building squads and building communities is also what this game has been about for over 20 years, and that aspect seems to be fading away. By playing TWD and encouraging players to recruit and maintain squads to do so, it'll naturally encourages those players who are so inclined to seek out and help newer players to create squads and create communities within them.
Now the impact here is that the less popular mode (TWDD) would likely not happen at all in MMR as people wouldn't be prepared to play the pre-req games to compete in MMR. However, if hosts follow through, and in those scheduled MMR TWDD hours NOTHING else is hosted, I'm sure people will be willing to give it a go.
Closing thoughts
MMR is great for 90% of us, for those that have been here for years, that want a no-bullshit, no-politics robot picking teams as fairly as possible, so we can just play without having to think. But it's awful for new players and our communities within the game.
New Player Experience
MMR has been great for the active community, particulary those from the American timezones. However, I'm not seeing how good it is for any emerging players like CZ350, David__kobra and so on. They get thrown in to begin with a relatively high elo, when 3000 is pretty much an 'average' player now, and 1500-2000 is more of an entry-level to low-end player. So when new players try the mode out, they're expected to pull the weight of someone who can at least go 8-10 or 10-10, and invariably their team gets smashed because they're a man down.
After being smashed for about 10 rounds in a row, if they're still playing, they then finally get matched to where their rating is.
qan - Now that MMR is 'established' and ratings have pretty much settled, can you lower the new players down to a 2k entry rating ?
Effect on TWD
TWD is now dead, and only serves as a method to provide captains for largely borrowed teams for basing. There is no incentive to play TWD any more, and TWD was the main funnel for newer players into lower-ranking squads to learn competitive play against other lower-ranked squads. In MMR, the lower-skilled players are spread between teams and are just generally shat on for being non-contributive.
Squads (communities)
With no reason to play TWD, squads are largely pointless now outside TWL, and losing the squads means the community aspect of gaming is harmed.
Suggestions
1. Scheduling
In order to keep TWD alive, and I'd hope most would agree that TWD is a generally a good thing, I think MMR might be best to be limited or scheduled to certain, pre-determined timeslots. There could be a calendar where MMR occurrs, where Jav or WB gets played between certain hours and hosts would be available to cover this schedule. Once the schedule is completed, MMR is closed until the following day, allowing more opportunity for games of Base to naturally evolve, and other game types - tourny, zombies and so on. It would also provide a window where competitive players in the WB/Jav seen can look to arrange and play TWD games, and diversify out into basing without competing directly against their preferred gametype to do so.
Advertised scheduling also means you'll get people planning to play at less popular times than before, e.g. if Euros knew that at 9pm GMT there will be Javs hosted for 90 minutes, they'll log in for that. If they know that at 11.30pm GMT there'll be warbird, they'll log in for that. A lot of people's time is currently wasted waiting for a mode they want to play, or not even having hosts online, or just having 5-6 people online concurrently that'll play any mode of MMR, who sit in elim for 10-15 minutes, log out, then someone else logs in to take their place and there's this constant cycle of 'not quite enough' players to get MMR started.
2. If not scheduling, MMR Gatekeeping
A more whacky idea would be to enable entry to MMR, you must be play X games of TWDD/TWDJ in the preceeding 7 days. Now, I know this sounds like work and I know people just want to log in and have fun, but building squads and building communities is also what this game has been about for over 20 years, and that aspect seems to be fading away. By playing TWD and encouraging players to recruit and maintain squads to do so, it'll naturally encourages those players who are so inclined to seek out and help newer players to create squads and create communities within them.
Now the impact here is that the less popular mode (TWDD) would likely not happen at all in MMR as people wouldn't be prepared to play the pre-req games to compete in MMR. However, if hosts follow through, and in those scheduled MMR TWDD hours NOTHING else is hosted, I'm sure people will be willing to give it a go.
Closing thoughts
MMR is great for 90% of us, for those that have been here for years, that want a no-bullshit, no-politics robot picking teams as fairly as possible, so we can just play without having to think. But it's awful for new players and our communities within the game.
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