Poll: Should online FPS games have player skill matchmaking?

[Avae]

Hi everyone!

I had played Battlefield 2 Bad Company and I found it really tough since I wasn't as skilled as most of the other players and I assumed that it was because I was late to that game and the general skill level of the players had naturally increased over time.

I thought that buying Battlefield 3 when it first came out would make it more enjoyable since a lot of players would be in the same skill level, they would be beginners but its not as enjoyable as I thought it would be.

My first game was really fun but unfortunately most of the other games after that where really tough, really impossible actually. I kept dying and I thought, this game must be amazing if your really good at, which is a shame because it's not really fun when you start playing it. It seemed that a large amount of players are just prey to these really skilled players.

Why is it that level 1 players have matches that have amazing players in it? It just doesn't seem to make sense. Why not have systems were you generally fight against people of your skill level, 1-10, 10-20 and above?

I have noticed this in a few online games, it seems like reviewers get the best experience but players afterwards get a less than good experience because the game itself becomes really unbalanced. If I just bought the game I shouldn't be playing against people who are veterans of it, like I said that system makes it really fun and intense for veterans but it makes me feel like I will never pick this up and it was a really expensive mistake to buy this game.

 

[zuro64]

Well this would be a good system to make it more "newb friendly" but at the same time if things are easy you never become hardend enough to become good!

My tip to you is to just learn to stay alive first, I know its boring but when you have learn to defend yourself you can focus on actually killing other. If you still dont think its fun well... then you werent that interested in the game from the beginning!

Also on a personal note it usally say this to players that think MP is to hard, LEARN like we all have because the players that are good didnt just sit down one day with a MP game and kick ass form the start. They learned from experience and the force of habbit, of course some skills to begin with didnt hurt but this is the way its always been and always will be!

 

[Lilani]

First of all, welcome to the Escapist~ Grab a smoothie and don't play near the lion pit. It's dangerous in there.

Second of all, here is my actual reply. Skill and competence are two completely different things. Most of the time it's not skill with the controls and weapons that makes a difference in multiplayer games--it's the competence to form and execute certain strategies and moves at the right time to complete the objective. For example in TF2, you can be the most skilled sniper on any server, but if the map is capture the flag and your team needs help making a rush to the enemy intel room you're pretty much useless. It takes skill to be a good sniper, but it takes competence to switch classes and strategies as needed to achieve the mission goals.

In deathmatch servers it's a different story, but really I think it would get a bit boring if EVERYBODY were the same skill level. Sure it's frustrating when everybody is too tough or too weak, but when it's a mix things aren't too bad (especially if you are really good with certain weapons but not with others. I'm a good Spy in TF2, but I suck at soldier.). And really, there's no way a skill rating system could possibly be accurate enough to cover everybody. It just opens up a system where people will be perpetually trapped inbetween, the computer trying to fit them into its little categories but still managing to do it incorrectly. And whenever that happens, they WILL be trapped in a permanent multiplayer hell, either stuck with people too weak or too tough.

The only sort of thing I could go for is "newbie servers," restricted to people with a certain playtime, like 30 hours or less.

 

[The Lunatic]

Depends.

If they're going to do 4 vs 4 matches or something small like that.

Personal skill is of great value and thus will be the deciding factor in a game, so, I'd argue the matchmaking is important.

Larger than that, 16 vs 16, 20 vs 20, 32 vs 32 and so on.

It's significantly less important.