Ahskance

@JuiceEFruit

As HamptonRoads stated above, the flags for achievements went away.

There's a weekly mission that folks get that awards Singla Containers for playing through Base XP earnings. The chains end with Gift Containers, so it's 15* (thanks @IfYouSeeKhaos) special flags per week when you collect both of them.

This is literally provided in the video I mentioned:

Direct Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7PmOMVLgsE

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In terms of how the Matchmaker sees you, it only "sees" the Class of Ship (Destroyer/Cruiser/Battleship/Carrier) and Tier. It uses different "baskets" to represent single tier situations as well as cross-tier situations.

The "Nation" aspect happens just before a match is dropped. For example, if there are 3 Cruisers per side and one team has 3 US Cruisers while the other has none, the Matchmaker will swap one of the Cruisers to the other side to "even to teams" in terms of "US Cruisers". So only in that way will the Nation of a ship be factored. Unless those 3 US Cruisers are in a Div, that is.

If I go to a Casino and sit down at a Poker table, I get whatever players happen to be there. If I get up and go to a different table, I get whatever players happen to be there. If I go to a Casino across town and find a table, I get whatever players happen to be there.

You can make an argument that the only "fair" way to play Poker is to have a registry that tracks everyone's lifetime earnings to make sure that people playing Poker are all fairly equal to each other. Or... you can just sit down at a table and do the best you can with whatever hand you are dealt.

Random Matchmaker is Random. It's unbiased because it has no metric for determining what skill is. It's just a way to get some folks together to play the game, and because it's truly random you'll end up having the whole gamut of experiences. From normal games to crazy matches that hinge on a dime because of a bad player doing something so bizzare that no good player ever expected and d...

It's Random. That's the point.

There's no favortism when the matchmaker doesn't understand what player stats are. It only matches based of Ship Nation, Class, and Tier.

The Better option, the one that makes Everybody Happy... is to just address the problem.

How do you do that?

Say it with me~

"Contact Customer Support and send a Replay. If it's egregious, also send Ahskance the Ticket# and the Replay"

Blacklist auto-Blocks players that you have chosen to Blacklist. So you won't see chat from them in game at all.

Also, it stops them from sending you messages in Port.

I lived in Atlanta most of my life. I remmber not too long ago there was a Superbowl where the Falcons were up like 24 to 0 or something stupid. They ended up routed towards the end in a defeat that is remembered as amazing for how sad it was.

Similarly, other high-end, top-of-their-game matches can lead to blowouts and lop-sided victories. Often, blow outs are a sign of skilled play as skilled players jump on an advantage and break the game their way with it.

If you want disorganized chaos, then you're arguing for the existance of a new-player queue where advantages/disadvantages don't matter since it's one big ball of crazy. That will result in less blowouts as people just slow-brawl the whole game through.

I'm not really sure what people think CAN fix blowouts. Other than ship respawn.

A player did a study of his battles and found little/no correlation to the matchmaking. Games just go the way they go.

Funny story. So I worked for a Movie Theater after the crash in 2008 when my warehouse laid everyone off. I got the job because I worked there as a 16 year old kid, and I moved quickly to a Supervisor position.

I was trained that "Supervisors" aren't -actually- Supervisors. They're "Managers-in-Training" and they are expected to act like it.

So, on a weekend they'd give me a Concession Stand that was understaffed to save some labor dollars... and then expected me to stand on the main floor just waiting around in case someone wanted to ask me something. Because that's what the "Manager on Duty" did.

Yeah, no. I worked my shift so understaffed wasn't understaffed. I got my guys breaks, I got stuff stocked, I did what you're supposed to do... I did the job.

Turns out some employees felt like I was "hovering" and didn't have faith in them, so they resented it? Weirded me out that having a boss work with you in the t...

Few games offer the "avoid" function. It's not something standard across a lot of titles.

I think Overwatch allows you to "Avoid" 3 people at max? Something like that.

Something as broad as that could certainly be an option. I'll look into if that's possible.

I'd read his point more as "Ultimately, one side's going to end up winning this. You had a 50% chance of being placed on the one that ends up winning vs the one that ends up losing." That was my thought, anyway.

But yeah, high-end folks can alter the game's odds quite a bit in their favor through excellent play during the game.

As literally just posted in another thread talking about Matchmaker:

There's a video that explain how it works:

...what?

Random Battles is... Random. Literally. People queue and it grabs people to make a game, the only Identifier the Matchmaker has to work with it your ship Type, Nation, and Tier.

There's a How It Works video that explains the whole process:

Direct Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7PmOMVLgsE

Do me a favor and send me the Ticket information on that one. Replay as well if you have it.

Yeah, so that's not what I said.

Whether you spend money or not, people invest thousands of hours into this game in a fairly regular way. As such, it's not as simplistic as folks are hoping with this "Three Strike Rule" stuff. That works for telling a kid to stop stealing cookies from a cookie jar, or not doing their homework and playing video games instead.

If a person gets Ticketed, they might get chat banned. Gets Ticketed again for in-game causing gameplay issues and gets a 1 day Game Ban. Gets Ticketed again for it and gets a 3 day Game Ban. Then... doesn't get Ticketed because "nobody believes in the Ticketing system", then enough time passes and they go back down the ladder on the Escalation Path. That's why I'm advocating that people actually Ticket these issues, because this narrative about it not mattering Makes It Not Matter.

If you want these things to be addressed, stop spending your time telling people that...

Your asking what the reward is for the Fourth Week? If you're already received all three rewards, you'll still get tokens from participating and the containers with the collection pieces.

I'll have to ask if the ship/captain/camo would be "re-earnable", though some events are designed in such a way that you can miss a section of time and still complete the event.

Studies show that even the most toxic players aren't always toxic. It might be that they are only toxic in 30% of their matches. It might be in 70% of them. By that understanding, there are matches where they AREN'T toxic.

It's a very different situation when someone starts the toxicity by themself and persists with it as opposed to being provoked and then flipping on the crazy switch. The situation is important to look at from a behavioral and discipline standpoint. That's why Replays are required.

It's not surprising to hear that Replays being sent can get the sender punished for incitement, because there are players out there that will start fights with notorious individuals as a regular thing. So it's important to NOT start those fights.

My gut says it's not likely, because then you have players that will try to rules lawyer or walk fine lines while getting away with things. I will ask about that, though.

Remember that if a game ban of a week is applied, then that can translate into a length of time where bad behavior stops. Obviously the next week isn't an issue, but if the line gets toed for 2 or 3 weeks after, then a month is a notable amount of time to consider as "improvement". However, it could also be that the problems happened again immediately, but because "Everybody knows Tickets don't matter" and nobody makes a Ticket showing repeated behaviors... then what could have been a escalation gets missed. This is why I am talking about the Ticket system so much.

So one of the issues that "notoriety" can cause is, "Oh. It's THAT player. We lose."

Once you have comments like that in chat, a player could argue that's a personal attack and that...

Yes, it is ironic to say that in a thread with so many inferences to players that folks have experienced issues with. However, this is a pain-point that is not new, and as this thread could be used as a teaching moment to remind people that Tickets are the Disciplinary Path in our game, I've elected to let it run for purposes of getting the word out.

Unaddressed issues lingering can end up breeding a lot of discontent (you might have noticed some in this thread), so it's important to give information on how such issues can be addressed.